That Someone should demand white only staff when delivering a baby

[pigletmania]

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.

Completely agree with Dorothea I have on many occaisions tried to explain to some of my pupils with extremely questionable views on colour, race, religion and immigration, they and I am in a massivley privilaged position because we are damed lucky. Being born in the UK is the equivilant of winning the lottery. So many people have this sense of entitlement and superiority which I just don't get. Makes me so

To BetaBlocker

It is not just 'culture' or 'color'

Anyone can be unfriendly, cold, unsympathetic and didainful.

When I has my daughter I had 2 white midwives who were so rude and rascist it was disgusting. They were talking about me in english thinking that I did not understand anything that they were saying.

They were talking about people like me (asian) who just sit at home and get controlled by their husbands who earn money and then claim benefits. If they only knew that I probably earn more money then both of them put together and live in my home that I bought myself and I have never in my life been on benefits.

While I had another midwife who was at my docters and she was black, she was the most lovely woman, I went back to me docters last week, (3yrs after having my daughter) and she recognised me straifgt away and was asking about my daughter.

It is not just about color, culture or whatever. It depends on how the person is.

that people would be that unprofessional aluvss I do despair of this country sometimes.

that crap they should have been turned away the stuck up cow the only thing i would request is female midwife male nurses fine but would prefer a woman to talk me thtough the labour

i had ds in north london, my main midwife was ghanian and the head midwife was jamician, yes she was tough and probably thought i was a bit of a wimp but so what, unfortunatly some ignorant just evolved from apes people only see the colour of skin its about who you are surely? and tbh yes it does annoy me that staff will chat to each other in their own language but only because i dont understand!! i know i if i was in a different country working and my colleagues were english i would chat to them in english

what does it matter what colour they are !

See, I'm actually interested in this from the point of view of being a new doula in a 'foreign' country. I do find people sometimes struggle with my accent and I get asked to repeat myself quite often in everyday life. I am also mindful of the fact that many women in labour want familiarity and homeliness. They want someone they can relate to. I can understand that I may well lose clients for that reason and I'm ok with that.

It works the other way of course, that expat women may be more likely to call me because a British woman may be more comforting. Even if it's because they share the same sense of humour and put them at their ease.

This is a bit of a tangent from skin colour and like you all, I find discriminating on skin colour abhorrent. But I guess what I'm saying is I can understand that for these few hours in a woman's life, she may have very particular wants and my 'doula' mind says she should have whoever and whatever makes her comfortable and political correctness be damned.

But the NHS is a different kettle of fish. You're birthing on someone else's territory and you don't get to set the rules.

But what would the hospital do ? They get a woman in advanced labour who point blank refuses a black midwife to touch her.If they don't attend to her and anything went wrong you can bet they would be facing a negligence charge.

I honestly think if you are offered treatment and refuse it then you become responsible for your welfare, the hospital should in no way panda to racist requests.

The doula point seems a bit of a red herring- she is there specifically for non-medical support; midwives have to do a lot more. I am a Christian, but when I went in for my caesarian I could hardly insist that the operating team should pray with me. They can't keep a separate medical team to ber in tune with every creed or sect that might be coming into their operating theatre. Or indeed specific midwives. Midwives are expensive, doctors even more so; they have to stretch as far as they will go.

Presumably if a doula of the right kind is not available at the time, the client can just go without. But if the right surgeon is not available/is refused, both the mother and the child will die.

Don't get me wrong: I think doulas are very important. But I imagine it is rare that a baby dies because there was no doula.

heard a story quite a few years ago about unborn twins dying because c-section surgeon was black and couple flat refused for him to operate, it was middle of night and they had to call another surgeon, by the time he arrived they had died, and he told them that he was going home and black surgeon would be operating on her anyway. Could be a myth but came from a member of theatre staff.

Hmm. I agree with you, cory on the caesarean point and even for hospital births (I think).

But for home births, sometimes midwives fulfill the doula role as well as the clinical one and have a very close relationship with their client with lots of emotional support.

Also, a doula is (or should be) a professional offering a service. Discrimination ethics should really apply to her as much as anyone else.

ity's stupid saying "oh, maybe she had abad experience with a balck midwife"

so, that means she's stupid enough to think all black midwives are uncaring??>?
tosh

racist pure and simple.

i had a horrid white midwife when I had ds1, and i also don't like my white community midwife.

it never occured to me to say that I didn't want any white midwives with me during labour. because i am not stupid enough to associate the unpleasantness of the 2 i experienced with their race.

fwiw the lovliest midwife round here is a lady from the caribbean- very pro-homebirth and very, very good at her job.

i had a right cow of a mdwf with dc2 (she was white) then shift changed with a polish woman,whom i remembered with dc1 had been short with me,and whom i'd had trouble understanding.
however i was in full on labour then and never even considered asking for someone else.am eternally grateful i didn't,she was fantastic.although i did have some problems understanding her very heavy accent.

she was very supportive and reassuring..then when my son wasn't breathing,and the alarm was pulled..she elbowed the dithering paediatrician out of the way..and saved my boy!she was amazing.maybe she was just having a bad day when i'd seen her before?they're only human.

my dh took her a card and flowers and chocs the next day and she was delighted!

i do have a dr i dread seeing though.he is italian and has a reeeeaaaallly strong accent.he told me my son was "algik to latiks!"
i asked him to repeat it twice but didn't want to offend him by admitting i just did not have a clue what he was saying!

i was half way home when it hit me ...ahhhh allergic to latex!!(he actually wasn't!!)

so can understand that people may prefer someone who can communicate clearly,colour should never enter the equasion!

sorry that should be laahtix

Yep it's racist but there's nothing illegal about being racist.
I'd imagine you get a lot of people who make requests based on their religious grounds about who they want in the room. Once again these are just requests which can be refused.

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SpeedyGonzalez and "Aluvuss* can I remind you that I said in my post that horrible midwives can be of any creed or colour?

Calling people "brainless" just because they disagree with you is surely as arrogant and bigoted as some of the other comments we're discussing on here.

I cannot believe that any woman in labour would give a shit abour what gender/race/religion/eye colour the person there to help them through it was.

Just after DD2 was born I had quite a large PPH, and was found in the loos by the maternity assistant. She was amazing, incredibly reassuring and totally professional. She was so calm and, if it hadn't been for her, I'm sure I would have totally freaked out and made a pretty crappy situation worse. She happened to be from the Philippines. I couldn't have given a flying fuck if she'd been from Mars to be honest!

I remember this when the story broke.

I thought the NHS Trust were going to be reprimanded for trying to agree to it?

I couldn't give a monkey's about the colour, race or religion of the medical staff who treat me. I did however have a problem with the OB who treated me when DD1 got stuck who treated me like a piece of meat. He happened to be from the Middle East. Maybe these two things are unrelated, but I have heard annecdotally from midwives that there are a number of OBs from the Middle East here now, and that often their attitudes to women are pretty archaic at best. Certainly the one who treated me was rude, treated me like a silly girl who had no idea what was happening to her body, and then lied to me about the treatment that he had given me (after making promises that he knew were false).

Sadly, I am sure that there are women-hating white British doctors, but I am also sure that there are a lot more in the Middle East, due to the culture, and I wish that there was a way of rooting them out somehow. Because I was mentally and physically scarred, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one.

I think there is a big distinction about not wanting a particular individual because you can't understand them and not wanting someone due to the colour of their skin. A few years back I needed an NHS dentist and managed to find one. However his English was pretty poor and very heavily accented. I'm used to dealing with all manner of international accents (and people with varying degrees of English) but I genuinely couldn't understand him which is quite a concern when he is drilling in your teeth at that moment. I kept having to look to the dental nurse (British Asian as it happened) to tell me what he was saying and it was clear this was a very regular occurrence for him. Needless to say I didn't go back and found it a pretty scary experience.