pregnant woman requests there be no non-white staff in delivery room

[DuelingFANGo]

blimey

Thankfully her request was not met. Would be interesting to know here reasons!

I saw this this morning

I'm glad the baby is OK. Though feel a bit sorry for it having an such apparently rascist mother!

This just makes me think of Rosie Purves - hopefully it was handled better than her case though

As absurd as the request is, when i was pg with DD i was at an ante natal clinic when an asian cfouple said they didn't want mum seen by a white malre Dr, and they had to wait for quite some time to be seen by an asian woman.

now whilst i can understand the cultural differences i just don't believe it is that different to the stroy above.

no - I think perhaps that couple should have been treated the same as the woman in the article.

but Mamazon - was is the race of the doctor they were concerned about or the sex?

I'm just surprised it's made the news. I'm sure it happens fairly frequently.

What happened to Rosie Purves then??

Rosie Purves

no it was the race that was the problem. husband had come along to supervise a male DR.

Well I wish that there had not been any 'barely English speaking' students/doctors in with me because they made my life hell!

But I do have good reason for that and it has nothing to do with colour, I don't know is that racist? If I were to have another child I would ask for only fluent English speakers to be involved in the main care.

A Belgian friend of mine, who had her baby in the UK was really worried about a (sort of) similar situation.

One of the mid-wives at the local hospital was West Indian with a heavy accent. My friend's English is very good, but also accented. She found it impossible to understand the West Indian midwife and really worried she wouldn't be understand (or be understood) information/instructions she was given during delivery. In the event she wasn't attended by that midwife, but she was really worried about whether she was "allowed" to ask for a different one.

Like mamadiva my MW during my first delivery did not have English as her first language and she was very difficult to understand especially when you are in labour. A few times she got cross and told me off as I hadn't done what she asked as I couldn't understand her, luckily she went off shift and I got another MW.

You are within your rights to refuse a male midwife though. I would have thought this would also have consequences under gender inquality? Actually you can refuse ANY midwife and ask for someone else to cover your care without giving a reason as far as I am aware.

I don't think you can refuse a male m/w though as if the male m/w was taken out the room because of his gender then its sexual discrimination.

I think it's different to ask for 'non white' staff though. Asking for people you can understand or who can speak your language is not the same as making a choice based on colour.

A obstetrician friend of mine told me about a black woman who came for an elective section and didn't want any caucasion staff in theatre and was not happy that my (white) friend did the op. Now she swears the woman was having twins and one of the twins was white. Apparantly the couple did have a white ancestor several generations ago. So not sure how they felt about having a white baby if they didn't even want a white doctor.

Bloody stupid. I think the communication issue is a bit different though. You need to be able to understand each other.

i suppose if you're a racist person then it's quite a consistent viewpoint. and the bnp vote does indicate quite a lot of racists in this country. in a way i feel that at least she was up-front.

I can see how the Rosie Purves case was tricky for the hospital as well, though: the racist was the patient's mother and the hospital probably thought it a bit unethical to refuse to care for the sick child on the grounds that the poor little sod had Eva Braun for a mum.
Re Midwives, though, it can be a pain if you have one who doesn;t speak the same language as you, or is just horrid (as a percentage of them are) but don't we all just end up having to put up with who ever is on shift?

gosh

That's horrid.

I don't care if a medic is black, white, blue, green or orange, as long as they are kind, caring, competent, knowledgeable and professional.

Rosie Purves wasn't a difficult case at all - classic institutional racism where the hospital let the issue continue for 7yrs without doing anything about it.

Solidghoul - that's what's worrying about the hospital's eventual response, they said in future they would refuse to treat the patient. Which is equally appalling - why should an innocent child suffer because they have the misfortune to have horrible parents?

Wonder why there is an investigation and in the paper etc??
Seems like they didnt agree to the request or change the rotas and there were non white staff caring for the patient, so the hospital behaved fine surely.
You cant raise an investigation into the hospital every time you get a racist patient!