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.

Obviously abuse is never ok but doing anything knee jerk is a ridiculous suggestion as it’s very easy to cry racism when there may well be more to situations( dire care, language issues, mistakes etc).Patients could then quite rightly sue.

In principle, I would be ok with not offering an alternative. But it would be hard in most cases to prove racism. Unless they are actively abusing staff.

Oh dear, so only the thickies are racist?

hate to disabuse you but racism is not a class issue. Think about South Africa - that racist regime couldn’t have held up as long as it did without a whole lot of educated, clever people (who should have known better) buying into it.

The exact same principles apply.

If someone is stupid enough to refuse medical treatment because the medical professional is a different colour to them, then they have to expect that their treatment will be delayed or they might not receive medical treatment if no staff of their colour is available.

If requesting a medical professional that’s your colour is entertained by the NHS (not that it is) where does it end? Can people start requesting teachers/bus drivers/ paramedics of a certain colour. Its ridiculous.

Actually I do think women should have more access to female staff when requested however I don’t think employing staff from a country that thinks vulnerable sections of society are simply possessed or deserve to be stoned is anyway shape or form ok particularly when corruption is also rife in said country.

But what is the alternative if British born people don’t want to do that work?

Nobody said anything about “thickies” as you so nicely put it. What are you on about?

The article references people quite openly refusing treatment because of skin colour. Sadly, it is often much more overt than most of us realise.

We have massive deficits in numbers of doctors and nurses in the UK which is why we issue visas to non UK professionals to fill the jobs. It works the other way round - if we had more British doctors and nurses we’d be issuing fewer visas.

Anyone who trains as a doctor short of failing their exams is basically guaranteed a job. Though it may not be in their preferred field, eg: neurosurgery.

I detect a racist subtext to your post which I’m not keen on, but the idea we put more money into the NHS, pay docs and nurses more so it’s an attractive profession to join, train more UK professionals, absolutely. But it would take 10 years to turn around and no government has the patience. If our system functioned properly we wouldn’t need an international workforce.

Racism is not just white people hating every other race but the majority of racist abuse NHS staff face are from white patients to non-white staff.
That’s just fact.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen the other way around and between other races.

But the sentiment is still the same - if you want to refuse treatment due to someone’s skin colour then that’s your choice - but you then go to the back of the queue and wait until someone of the race you want becomes available which may be hours considering there are so many others desperate for treatment.

Everyone is within their rights to refuse treatment.

If you’re going to be abusive to staff then you get given a warning to stop or go back into the waiting room.

Anyone who truly needs treatment would not refuse care.

Do you think all people from a particular culture hold the same views and beliefs?

I disagree with "If someone refuses treatment for whatever reason let them go. Zero tolerance."

A friend's mother waa diagnosed by a neurologist as having alzheimers. He was very dismissive about the whole thing. 3 weeks later she collapsed and it turned out she had a massive brain tumour. A couple of years later my nephew was referred to the same neurologist. My brother refused to let my nephew see him and asked for another referral. Sometimes there's a good reason for refusing to be treated by someone.

I don't think it's much to do with racism but it's mostly about their overseas qualifications.
Yesterday there was an article about Egypt qualified doctor who performed nearly fatal bowel procedure.

And, to be devil's advocate again, should the same apply if someone refuses intimate treatment from a member of the opposite sex?

If not, why not?

Assuming at least part of the reasoning is possible past trauma and risk, would you apply the same to any victims of, say, the grooming gangs who are particularly triggered by South Asian men but not others?

I'm genuinely curious to understand how people justify the difference based on their own logic for the permissibility of requesting same sex treatment.

I don't care about the colour of anyone's skin, but having had a bad experience last week when DH was in hospital (having heart surgery) I do care that I can't understand what someone is saying to me.

He had complications in theatre which meant that his supposed 2 hours in stretched out to nearly 5, and when I hadn't heard from him by 3pm (after leaving him at 7am) I was starting to feel very worried. It took nearly an hour to get through to someone in the day case unit, and when I did I couldn't understand her - she was trying to tell me that he was back on the ward but some parts of the operation had been unsuccessful. I ended up with a racing heart myself, and was nearly sick.... and I felt awful but I had to ask that she put someone else on the line so I could find out what happened. When he was discharged thank god DH had paperwork and I'm a trained HCP because he hadn't got a clue what she'd told him for aftercare.

They do. Uk trained doctors and nurses want jobs- unfortunately they’re proving hard to get.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3vy05n6xnro

And that’s just nurses. We’re training doctors too, spending thousands only for them having to go to Australia because they can’t get work here. Utter madness.

Yes, it does seem to be getting more overt and the instances mentioned are ofc racist.

When I went into labour we were assigned a male midwife.

If I'd said oh no, I don't want you delivering my baby, I want a woman! Then I am exercising my right to decline treatment for any reason I wish.

The NHS is under no obligation to scrabble to find a female midwife for me. Indeed, they might not be able to anyway. There aren't endless clinicians available frankly.

Patients make these kinds of decisions each day, whether to accept the treatment offered by the clinician they've been assigned or go without treatment/put up with the risks of waiting for someone they prefer.

Totally agree, it’s depressing isn’t it? There does seem to have been a rise in racism in general, and I’ve definitely noticed it on mumsnet too. Perhaps the racists were always there and just feel emboldened now, they are definitely louder and prouder. Or more people are becoming racist because the like of Farage and little Tommy ten names have persuaded them that all their problems in life are caused by non whites.

But those people may be in the UK at least in part because they don't agree with their country or perhaps even feel persecuted by their country. Not all citizens agree with the views, rules and laws of those in charge (both in the UK and abroad).

In practice it's the same whatever someone's reasons are for requesting a clinician of a specific gender or ethnicity or age. It's no different.

Patient has the right to decline for any reason. NHS is under no obligation to fulfil a request for a clinician that matches the patient's preferences. It can choose to do so but it isn't required to.

Love this ❤️❤️

Anyone who is actually poorly wouldn’t turn down being seen by a medical professional and this proves it.

They just like to bully and scare people and known that this is their chance to get away with it.

My very British, very white friend married a man with a foreign surname and so they automatically ask to see someone else thinking she’s not going to have white skin.
It just means them having to wait ages for an appointment and then they moan that they’ve had to wait so long.

Really? You think people are calling Drs monkeys because of their overseas qualifications?

OK, is it a fact? You've just asserted it to be true. What are you basing that on?

(I would tend to assume you are correct, but it is just an assumption and we're all supposed to be alive to unconscious bias when considering these things, which I admit I was not until the pp questioned it!)