Hospital prayer room for gravely ill children plastered with LGBT flags

Who gives a flying shit about who someone wants to bone/what some man wants to cosplay as when their poor child is gravely ill in a room supposed to be a quiet place to take a breather? For fucks sake, this is so deeply innappropriate.

This is sickening. Someone should grow a pair and take those flags down. I remember how stark white the hospital was when my daughter was dying, I'm glad I don't remember much else to be honest. The bereavement suite was very neutral as it should be. I'd have found this highly inappropriate and it would have made me uncomfortable. Pushing pride at one of the worst times in a parents lives is a new low.

It is the neutralness of these areas that are so important for the use of that room. Neutral and calm tones, a peaceful place to be.

This is a political act that removes that neutrality where it is desperately needed.

Even if you're pro-LGBT, at some point you have to recognise that not everything in life comes down to sexuality and gender. Children dying being a good case of something that doesn't!

‘Sick children are all very well, but how can we make this more about me?’

Oh, god, “chill out zone” for parents rent apart by anguish and grief? How brutally insensitive.

Hospital prayer rooms are meant to be multi-faith suitable. A calm, reflective space for someone to pause and meditate/pray at a time of need.

As an atheist I've found them to be a much needed sanctuary in a place filled with the smells and sounds of people fighting for their life without overt iconography.

Activism of any kind is neither welcome nor warranted in these spaces and any hospital chaplain worthy of their salary knows this and champions the rooms as a sanctuary for anyone that needs them. This hospital and chaplain are completely out of order.

If they want a pride specific chill space then get one of the many rainbow organisations to pay for one to be created - I have no issue with that. But don't intrude on a calm sanctuary for grieving and worried parents/family/friends.

Something that this chaplain hasn't considered - or, more likely, doesn't care about - is that people make weird associations at these times of heightened emotional stress. I can't listen to 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' by Bobby McFerrin because it instantly takes me back to the telephone call I received telling me my much-loved gran had died, as it was playing in the background.

Does this person really want parents potentially having a visceral, negative response to Pride rainbows and trans flags in the future, because a glimpse of one - and let's be honest, they're fucking everywhere - puts them straight back in that room at the hospital, digesting the news that their little one might not/isn't going to make it?

DQST is probably on the cards already, nothing surprises me anymore.

Don’t give them ideas
I am so sorry your child is dying but here’s a bloke in stripper shoes and a wig to make it all better

Shame they can't turn it into a pride room and open another chaple souly as a chaple. Bonkers solution but maybe this is the only answer.

You can sexualise anything today. Even death.

It appears that they are conducting a survey for their LGBT Charter its quiet short with a couple of free text boxes, might be worth while expressing feelings about this there !

https://children.nhslothian.scot/about-us/

Why not stick a fucking drag queen story time in there too? This really makes me angry. Live and let live, but this is just outrageous.

That chaplain is shit at his job frankly. Do they put up shitty decorations for other celebrations? If they do they need to stop that too.

Who at the depths of their worst possible moment is going to give a shiny shit about pride, christmas, a coronation, earth day or anything else? Their focus is their loved one - in this case children. if pride is relevant to that persons life they will already be well aware of it and that will be part of their reflections accordingly.

I think any room that's being used as a tranquil, peaceful, reflection space needs to be sensitively decorated in calming, neutral colours with dim lights. Nothing that could cause sensory overload to distraught families of gravely I'll toddlers & children. This is downright disrespectful & condescending.

‘Trans ness is a gift from God’

maybe, but which God?

This is despicable. How is it allowed?

If I had a seriously sick child and walked into this, it could seriously push me over the edge.

It's the opposite of feeling cared for.

I shudder to imagine the experience of parents of gravely ill children. The anguish must be relentless.
Think about the sort of space they might need when nothing can actually help but a few moments of calm might be needed to live through what is facing them.
What an astonishing lack of empathy and kindness.

What you fail to understand is that anyone who objects is a bigot and needs to be called out. What better time than when a child is gravely ill or dying.
How these arseholes think they have the moral high ground is beyond me.

Isn't here any line, just one, that you activists won't cross?

What if the parents are from a religion that says homosexuality is wrong?
I am not saying I agree with that viewpoint but the room should be as religiously and ideologically neutral as possible so ALL parents see it as a place of refuge.

“Happy Pride”, too? In a hospital for sick children?

Who thought this was acceptable? Where are their brains, their empathy, their sense of what’s appropriate for the most serious and potentially saddest of places??

The sick kids is on its own building ( there is an adult dept also there). It's in the same grounds at the Royal Infirmary plus the Anne Rowling Centre ( yes JK Rowling funded). The windows in the stairwell are also "decorated" with trans flag, another stripey flag, and the words happy pride. I am as GC as they come but the piss poor quality of these offends me more plus it makes the stairwell darker.

Yes it operates as its own standalone hospital treating children only. It's been built next to the hospital for adults but it's only for children.

I agree the concept and naming of 'chill out' room is utterly disgusting. Reflection room, contemplation room, chaplaincy room. Any of these would be fine. Chill Out Room is something you have at a festival.

I can't think how I'd behave if faced with this at the worst possibly time of my life, if one of my children was dying. Unbelievable.

One of my DC is gay, (the other is bi) and I'm Christian.
I don't need rainbow flags to know God will accept them.
The flags in that setting are completely inappropriate.