It begins! Calls for NHS lanyards to be removed because of the Nowak killing

[SocialistMammy]

I suppose this knee-jerk over-the-top reaction was inevitable.

There are calls today - including from Kemi Badenoch - for public sector staff, including the NHS! to stop wearing "political" lanyards.

These could be just showing that you're a decent person who opposes genocide, or that your patient is safe with you regardless of your sexuality or gender identity when they are being treated.

And this is all because .. of the murder of Henry Nowak.

So, despite the calls from Nowak's family not to politicise their poor boy's death - that's EXACTLY what the far right are now trying to do. And the NHS has NOTHING to do with that police officer.

Where this is heading looks very ugly - we've got a World Cup starting shortly, and that's going to mean England flags being used to attack minorities. Will footballers have to make statements about diversity being anti white? Probably - it feels like the far right think this is their time now and ANYTHING is up for grabs.

It will be lanyards today, deportations tomorrow. Mark my words.

I think you have chosen the wrong example for a politically neutral organisation.
An organisation that helps asylum seekers to bring their families to the UK.
Get help as a refugee or asylum seeker | British Red Cross

Quote
Help with travel to the UK
"If your family live overseas and have family reunion visas, we may be able to help them travel to the UK."

So if you think you are donating money for a bit of medical care for the vulnerable think again.

@SocialistMammy hospitals have high levels of sex attacks on women.

What is the badge that tells me and my dauhters we are going to be safe there ??

Wearing a badge = declaring support for one side.
Not wearing a badge = showing neutrality.

This sounds great to me.

I hate the rainbow lanyards. I don't want to know your opinions about gay people/trans people/100 different genders just because I have an ingrown toenail. Completely irrelevant. Pride has been taken over by fetishists and furries. It's not the 1990s anymore (when awareness was low and ignorance was high) move on.

Except I'm Jewish and at my pre-op assessment last week for my cancer op the nurse was wearing a Palestinian badge. When we went through the info form I told her I had no religion. Which meant I wasn't offered kosher food when I was admitted.

Why does that make them not neutral?

neutrality in treating the patient in front of you!!! @Winter2020

I accidentally found myself at the Pride in Brighton. You are right - fetish and bondage and a lot of showing off and getting in your face.

Sorry you had to go through that. This is why I think that specifically public services should not allow these lanyards / political badges. It has a lot of potential to affect the healthcare etc that you receive.

Private businesses are a different matter.

Edit to add that there's a reason religion, beliefs and political leanings are special category data.

In have a large number of gay relatives (more than average - interesting… but another thread) and they detest the Pride thing, as do gay friends. They are not weirdos and perverts.

I'm sorry you experienced that. 💐

I'm Jewish too and spent a week in hospital last year and experienced anti-semitism (for the first time in years!) from two nurses one night.
I was really scared, they were absolutely horrible.
I was so ill at the time I didn't piece together what happened until later.

I hope your op goes well and you heal fast

Did you complain? Luckily the staff for my op and for after care were all absolutely lovely....and no political badges in sight.

Helping the families of asylum seekers move to the UK is not a politically neutral act. It's about as politically contentious as you can get at the moment.

Yes treating a patient - not assisting them to move to the UK!

Exactly.

A patient is much more likely to feel unsafe when a medical professional wears a political symbol or lanyard which opposes them than they are to feel safer when the symbol is in support.

Because it is an basic assumption that a medical professional will care for you adequately... unless they are blinded by intolerant hatred against you. And we have all seen that those who display those performative symbols are the most hate-filled and least tolerant of different beliefs.

NHS staff absolutely shouldn't be permitted to wear symbols which could cause a patient to fear that they could be actively discriminated against and come to deliberate harm.

You’d have to get pretty close to read the details. And I think most people wouldn’t care enough about my employment to stare that intently at my chest area in order to find out. The ID badge is much less conspicuous than a bright rainbow lanyard with NHS plastered over it.
You do seem very invested in my thoughts though, which is interesting.

Work lanyard should be just that. NHS lanyard should be just NHS.

One is more than enough. How many do you need??? Try harder.

It's very telling that you say 'trans issue' and not 'feminist issue' or 'womens rights issue'.... FYI, it never was about 'trans'. But womens rights.

Posters like that are so incredibly desperate to silence the topic. Nobody whines more than them on this.

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that you had to suffer for that bigoted nurse. This is why these political lanyards, whether rainbow, pro Palestine or even pro Israel or pro anything should be banned. As someone above said, we don't need to know who you fuck when you're off your shift, or what politics you support. All government services should be politically neutral. No badges or lanyards of any political sort should be allowed.

The reverse is also true. Imagine being a Palestinian and seeing a pro IDF badge or something similar. Badges and lanyards shouldn't be brought to work. It always signals something political.

That's awful. And dangerous. There are patients who need to eat who won't as a result.

Please complain about the position it put you in.

It's not ok.

Agree, though I'd bet pro-Palestinian badges are much more of an issue in the NHS than pro-Israeli ones. But yes, the answer is for none of it to be worn whilst at work.

You don't think his condemnation of Farage was also a performative political statement?

It backfires every time because Farage is only saying what a sizeable proportion of people are thinking.

Starmer would have done better to acknowledge that, call Farage out calmly for not condemning the violence, and then appeal for calm, not by attacking Farage for saying what people are thinking.

I don't know why they can't learn, it's being going on since Brexit, over a decade now. The more they attack the man personally, the more people vote for him.