AIBU to think refusing treatment from non-white medical professionals should have consequences?

[MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack]

There has apparently been a significant rise in racism towards NHS staff, with a growing number of people refusing to allow non-white NHS staff to treat them. This is sad but not surprising given the shift in society as a whole towards people expressing their racism much more openly.

https://news.sky.com/story/nhs-staff-experiencing-unconscionable-levels-of-racist-abuse-survey-finds-13569575

I have always admired the commitment of NHS staff who treat all patients with care and compassion, even when those patients are rude and abusive. But if people are actually refusing to let certain staff provide treatment, surely there should be consequences for this?

AIBU to think that everyone has the right to refuse treatment if they so wish, but if a patient refuses treatment from a medical professional simply because they don't like the colour of that medical practitioner's skin, then they should then forfeit the right to receive that treatment on the NHS. So they can either go without or find the money to be treated privately by a medical professional of their choice?

There would need to be signs warning people of the consequences of their choices, of course, but if someone doesn't want a Black or Asian radiographer carry out their x-ray, then fine... they just don't get an x-ray.

Vinvertebrate Language is rarely straightforward, I agree. I did wince at 'bright young blacks', not because of 'blacks' per se, but because the whole phrase does sound patronising. I can't articulate why it does, perhaps because 'bright young...' is a stock phrase usually uttered by people in authority over the bright young ones. No doubt the partner IS in authority over them, but he was somehow emphasising it in his phrasing.

I am as responding to a poster who expressed indifference as to whether racists lived/died/suffered through lack of NHS care, not to the OP. The point being that if we keep child killers alive, we can hardly dispatch people with the dreaded “wrongthink”.

I can understand why the posts of a moderately right-wing-ish person, who is married to a Muslim immigrant, with a mixed race disabled child, befuddles your little leftist echo chamber, bless you.

Exactly, it’s hard to articulate why, but it felt “wrong”. You are correct that the first partner was more senior, but I don’t the second was coerced into defending him iykwim. Both were pretty mortified, but it was worse for partner #1 who was “blamed” for a race-related diplomatic incident despite doing everything he could to avoid it!

Perhaps I am not explaining myself well

You're explaining yourself just fine, @jacks11, but you're also rightly pointing out that these aren't always straightforward issues to deal with, and that won't suit those who feel their own interpretation must be the correct one, or the sort who advocate for racists to die

As for "Isn't (addressing this) in the diversity is a strength manual?", @windsurf, I can assure you that such concepts aren't always welcome at the kind of meetings which formulate these things. IME the focus is more around everyone congratulating everyone else on what a splendid idea it all is, and any caveats raised can be viewed as "wrongthink"

Moderate 😜

Who said that they don't?

Surely it’s because it reminds us of the segregationists of SA and Zim who talk about the ‘blicks’, rather than ‘black people’. It came to be dehumanising and to signal difference rather than humanity.

And that is exactly how he used it - he’d never have said ‘bright young whites’. He was pointing out how unusual it was to have black
people there, rather than simply welcoming them.

Can I just point out no one is suggesting they are 'dispatched'. They have the same access to care as everyone else. If they don't want it because it isn't on their preferred terms then that is their choice, they have the right to refuse care. Some of us just don't believe the NHS should then scramble to find them a doctor of the correct race

The poster to whom I was responding expressed indifference as to whether “racists” (and it’s not clear how we decide who is or isn’t) actually expired or suffered iirc. I appreciate there’s a lot of “considerably richer than you” one-upmanship as to who can be the least-likely-to-be-an-actual racist person on the thread, but even withholding treatment is fraught with massive practical difficulty. (And as I posted earlier, DH has actually been racially abused while working in the NHS, so I’m hardly likely to be “team crack on racists” myself).

Pretty sure indifference is not the same dispatching or encouraging dispatching though, is it?

Well yes, that’s what it signaled to me, but obviously no such inference existed for the (black) guy who advised him to use it. It reminded me of apartheid news coverage in the 1980’s, but the person who advised him was younger than me, and not a UK lawyer, so perhaps had different cultural references.

I don’t feel well-placed to comment on the rights and wrongs, but I do think it was unfortunate and unintentional - and many of the inferences drawn from patients in the brave new world where we only treat the “correct” people, will be similar.

Withholding treatment probably equates to dispatching if the patient is ill enough, I suppose. It’s our old friend nuance again!

You are basing your request on language and communication barriers and bedside manner. That’s not racism. You have received treatment that you found unhelpful or below standard. That’s fine to request. If you’d requested someone different before having had treatment, based on skin colour, that would be racist and unacceptable.

I’m amazed so many people think there will always be a “choice” of who a patient can see or be treated by. Resources are scarce these days- that includes staff members.
If you pitch up to outpatients to see the Consultant and you don’t like his/her skin colour or sex, or accent, don’t assume you pop to the next room to see someone else! Chances are there is one Dr covering that clinic. The days of the consultant having a registrar with them at clinic are long gone at our Trust, they are busy with their own schedules. If you want to be offered to see someone else on another day then you will go to the back of their waiting list, because appointments are booked up months in advance, and you can’t just steal someone else’s appointment! Same if you are having a procedure, the staff can’t just click their fingers and magic up a different clinician. So yes anyone can refuse treatment that’s their prerogative, but there may not be any other choice on offer so that may mean either no treatment or a very long wait on another list. That’s not the NHS being mean or nasty, it’s just one of the realities of how overstretched the service is.

I have breast cancer. I regularly see the breast nurses for post surgery care. 2 are white British, 1 is black Caribbean. They are all amazing, kind, compassionate and knowledgeable. When I arrive for a wound check I never know who I will see and I don't care or mind.

2 weeks ago I had a massive fat necrosis cyst burst late on a Saturday night. It scared me silly. I went to A&E and eventually saw a Dr. He removed the dressing I was wearing, said he didn't know why my wound had burst, put on a new dressing as I was leaking and bleeding and told me to contact the breast care nurses on Monday.

He didn't clean me or disinfect the wound. By Monday I had a raging infection. For which I am now receiving negative pressure wound therapy and my radiotherapy will need to be delayed which will take me out of the optimum period for radiotherapy after surgery.

That Dr was Indian. If I ever end up back in A&E I would refuse to see him. I believe he should have cleaned the wound and not just slapped a new dressing on me. If I refuse to see him I could be accused of racism which couldn't be further from the truth.

That would be the consequence for their behaviour, and completely fair enough. Make patients aware and if they insist then they made their choice. I don’t think anyone objects to what’s basically a natural consequence . OP wanted to take it a step further though, and ban such patients from using the NHS completely.

Well yeah, but if I need to have a review for my condition with a nurse again and they say it’s x , and I ask for a different one , I’m relying on the receptionist/staff to remember that I didn’t have any issues with nurse y, or them asking clarifying questions, or offering nurse y which I would accept etc. If we don’t allow for nuance or go in with a pre-made conclusion anytime someone says “I want to see someone else” it can cause a lot of unnecessary hassle. Never mind OP’s suggestion that such people should be barred from using the NHS completely. It’s the absolute that bothers me.

This is perhaps a good example of why ‘asking one black person’ isn’t a great equity strategy!

A genuinely diverse team (which can and should mean diversity of all kinds not just race) would have had a better idea for how British ears would hear that phrase.

I don’t actually think it’s wrong or offensive, but it’s awkward and it just signals to me (rightly or wrongly) someone who isn’t comfortable around black people, doesn’t know any and thinks we are somehow different to him. That’s not his fault per se, but I wouldn’t criticise one those ‘bright young blacks’ if they’d felt less comfortable around him as a consequence. They’d have to get over it, as would he.

But you - and others - are the ones introducing the absolute. OP and many more have said it’s not about asking for someone else for a range of appropriate reasons. The objection and criticism is of people asking specifically for white clinicians. If you want nurse y just say ‘I really liked how nurse y explained things, can I have him or her’? I’ve requested a specific nurse before because she was super knowledgable and interested in my particular condition, the other one less so.

Semantics, but I think most of us have been clear that emergency treatment is a different scenario than a bloke kicking off in reception because he wants the white nurse to do his blood test.

Sorry that happened to you. I would suggest you contact PALs and/or make a complaint about the doctor.

I find it difficult to imagine that a clearly well founded complaint such as yours would be dismissed as ‘racism’ and I don’t think you should fear that.

I don’t think people need to be too worried, If you feel that care has been poor, it’s ok and understandable to ask to see someone else. I (a brown doctor) have several times been asked to see patients who are refusing to see a brown doctor colleague of mine. Because they felt unheard and dismissed and don’t want to see him again. That’s completely fair enough, and racism on their part doesn’t even cross my mind. It helps perhaps that I too think he’s a bit of a dick…

Indeed. The panic on here!

Maybe there would be less panic (speaking for myself here) if the NHS didn’t have form for putting ideology above facts.