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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

That Someone should demand white only staff when delivering a baby

140 replies

pigletmania · 13/01/2010 22:40

I was reading the local paper and it said that a lady demanded that white only staff deliver her baby at the local hospital min Milton Keynes, I am that someone could have that kind of attitude tbh, thought this kind of thing happened in the very distant past.

I am not a troll but a regular but just shock that someone can be so blatantly rascist.

OP posts:
thesecondcoming · 13/01/2010 23:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

chegirlsgotheartburn · 13/01/2010 23:13

OH got loads of racist crap when he was a paramedic.

Funnily enough though no one refused to have him save their life

gasman · 13/01/2010 23:14

Sadly not uncommon.

Almost all of my non white colleagues have tales to tell of patients asking "To see another doctor". They, my colleagues, say it is usually very clear that the problem is with their skin colour and not their professional capabiliites.

Sometimes the requests can be even more blatant "we want to see someone English". To which my Preston born Asian colleague replies "well that's me then".

I visited a patient post op recently who told me that the "black bastard" had done her operation. I found hideous that anyone felt that was an acceptable way to refer to a respected member of the medical profession who happens to be my boss in such a way.

Not that it makes an difference but the person in question grew up in the same area as her and attended the school that she had only recently left.

I have to say I am appalled at my response as I did nothing. I'm sure that there were about a million trust procedures I should have invoked but I was just so shocked I couldn't say anything at all.

scottishmummy · 13/01/2010 23:18

sadly happens a lot.competent practitioners taking verbal abuse and comments about race/religion

Original poster
pigletmania · 13/01/2010 23:19

I am gasman, one would think that the health of the baby is far more important than skin colour or the ability to do the job properly

OP posts:
PoppyIsApain · 13/01/2010 23:21

Maybe she had had a bad eperience with a Black Midwife in the past and it was her only way to make sure she didnt get the same woman.

scottishmummy · 13/01/2010 23:22

tosh.you dont apply blanket rules like that. her behaviour is inexcusable

PoppyIsApain · 13/01/2010 23:22

Sorry didnt finish the post and it sent.
Or maybe she was just a racist bitch.
You cant request that legally IMO.

ihatetinselbob · 13/01/2010 23:23

i used to work at a hospital and one day we had a dad who came in with his seriously ill child. When the doctor walked in the dad said 'I don't want that fing black B* touching my son'.
I was so and I said 'you either let this extremely well qualified doctor look at your child or you wait for another doctor to come and I can tell you right now that the next one that comes along will also be black, so you'll then have to wait even longer while we find a white doctor, who may not be as qualified as this doctor. In the mean time your ds could very well be dead, so if that's the risk your willing to take, I'll see what I can do.
I don't know who was more shocked the dad or the doc, but the dad didn't say anything else. He even managed a feeble thank you after the doc stablised his son.
I find it very sad that people have these atitudes, especially as the health service wouldn't be able to run if it wasn't for all the wonderful doctors that come to work here from abroad.

scottishmummy · 13/01/2010 23:28

poppy,yes see your completed post noe.

duchesse · 13/01/2010 23:28

Nearly understandable in a 95 yo old dementing person.

Utterly reprehensible in a young person. I hope the staff who did attend her managed not to be horrible to her. She sounds like a sad cow, possibly not quite all there.

PrettyCandles · 13/01/2010 23:29

Poppy, that was not the only way for her. I had very bad experiences during dc1's birth with a particular midwife - who happened to be black - and she was on duty when I went into labur with my dc2. When I saw that she was being assigned to look after me, I told the Sister "I don't want her coming anywhere near me." and my demand was accepted without a murmer. This woman's demand is racism - pure and simple.

Of coruse she can make the demand! That's not illegal AFAIK. Just stupid.

I sincerely hope it would never be obeyed, though.

scottishmummy · 13/01/2010 23:30

patients can request anything they wish,trusts dont have to comply.on a practicable level if pts refuse a black Dr/nurse they have to then wait until next avail staff is free.and on any shift there is no guarantee that there will be there requested preference

GreenMonkies · 13/01/2010 23:41

The SHO who delivered DD1 was from not British. Her speech was so heavily accented I couldn't understand her. She was also cold and insensitive and unpleasant.

Nothing to do with her specific race, just her personality. I work alongside several other non-British Dr's, one in particular who is very lovely, she speaks accented, but clear, English, and looked after me in the EPU when I was first pregnant with DD2. She did several TV scans on (in?) me, and her sensitivity and warmth meant I wasn't in anyway uncomfortable working with her a few weeks later. In fact I tell people that she was the first person to meet DD2!

It should only be about who they are, and how they treat you, not where they come from.

PoppyIsApain · 13/01/2010 23:53

prettycandles read my second post down before thinking of me like that. Thanks

ArcticFox · 13/01/2010 23:57

Hmm, I'm wondering whether there's a bit more to this than meets the eye. As there's no direct representation from the patient it's not clear as to whether she actually articulated "white only" (i.e. used those exact words)

(i.e this demand could have been paraphrased by a third party or be a direct quote from the person making the complaint)

Anyway, I agree with the gist of this thread. Refusing to be treated by a doctor/nurse purely on the basis of race is unacceptable. Refusing to be treated by someone because you cannot understand what they are saying or because you have had a previous bad experience with them (regardless of race) is, frankly, acceptable.

I once had stitches removed by a Chinese doctor who spoke very unclear English and I was quite freaked out as I didnt understand what he was telling me he was going to do before he started. That was obviously just a routine thing, so I can imagine that with a complicated birth, you really want to be able to understand what is being said. I dont doubt the guy's competency but his communication was terrible.

Awassailinglookingforanswers · 14/01/2010 00:01

BBC story at the time says she apparently objected to non-white staff being in the delivery room.

lockets · 14/01/2010 00:02

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

MNingatmidnight · 14/01/2010 00:10

If I have another child at some point then I will definitely be requesting staff that have a good grasp of the English language.

As some other posters have said the staff that I was given (as a very scared teenager, having her first baby in a hospital I had never been in, in the middle of the night and in agony) were awful. They could hardly speak English and constantly chatted in their own language to each other, which I found rude and unprofessional. They were also very regimental and uncaring. It has exactly the same with the nurses on the ward, standing at the nurses station chatting on the phone or to each other in their own language - hence why I only stayed 1 night and couldn't wait to get the hell out. I don't care what colour someone is but I do expect them to speak English! Luckily the shift changed and I had a lovely English lady at the end who was calm and very reassuring.

I would go as far as saying nurses/doctors should be required to speak only English in an English hospital.

Awassailinglookingforanswers · 14/01/2010 00:14

well I'd go as far as saying that they should be able to speak clear English whether they're a native English speaker or not........

But then I guess a lot of it is subjective isn't it - there's a lovely mum at school, really nice Thai lady. My BF can understand every word she says........I really struggle to understand her, the opposite is true for a Polish mum at the school - my BF struggles to understand her but I can understand her clearly.

And lets not even talk about some of the native British mum's who don't even seem to be able to string a sentence together in any language that makes sense to anyone but themselves

thesunshinesbrightly · 14/01/2010 00:16

That is awful does it matter what race, colour religon you are? are people still really that shallow to only see colour?

thesunshinesbrightly · 14/01/2010 00:18

Religion

Awassailinglookingforanswers · 14/01/2010 00:21

ooops - I've just clicked on my "BBC" link and realised I've pasted the wrong link (that's the piano I covet )

THIS is the bbc news article from when it happened

CarmenSanDiego · 14/01/2010 00:22

To play devil's advocate...

In an ideal world, I think we should all have a right to choose the midwife we want to deliver a baby. In the US, patients interview doctors to choose the caregiver who suits them.

Women in labour are facing a very dark moment and perhaps the greatest pain they've ever been in. They have a lot of stress hormones circulating. What they need is a midwife who makes them feel comfortable. For many of those women, the ideal will be a midwife who is 'like them' - who shares similar upbringings or values.

Would we condemn an Indian woman who expressed a preference for an Indian midwife if one was available? Would there be a problem with a devoutly Christian woman picking a Christian midwife (or perhaps to use a better example of something available in the UK), a Christian doula who could pray with her?

In an ideal world, I'd say we should all be able to pick whatever will get us through it. But as the UK has a NHS and it is being paid for by the public, then no, she doesn't have a right to pick based on race, gender or any other arbitrary criteria. If she pays herself, then she can have whoever she wants imo.

BooHooMonkey · 14/01/2010 00:23

Sorry to play Devil's Advocate here but I used to work for a newspaper in Milton Keynes and MK News had a reputation in the industry to be quite sensationalist and economical with the truth.