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!

MK General is supposedly the worst Maternity Unit in the country (I can believe that having had a baby there too)

This is the first time in a long time that the local paper has been able to publish something positive about it - ie they refused the racist request instead.

stripey knickers: i think that the gender discrimination laws are exempt in the case of "lady's bits"

you are allowed to refuse a male nurse or widwife if it's to do with your privates.

midwife

(and obviously it's your privates in that case!!)

When I was giving birth I was attended by a midwife who was drenched in overpowering perfume, which was making me gag. I begged for somebody else and was ignored. My DH said the perfume was even affecting him.

I think my request was reasonable. But, I think that women who are about to give birth will probably often make unreasonable requests, which should be honoured if feasible, with minimum drama.

This woman's request was a one-off and was refused. So what? Why the need for a "full investigation"?

Avril H - Your midwife CHOSE to wear overpowering perfume.

This nurse didn't ask t be born a certain colour.

There are such twats on here sometimes. Defending the indefensible.

MAmazon - The fact the asian couple chose to decline treatment from white/male doc and replaced with asian/female doc justifies this case does it?

Didn't one of the bnp wives on tv say she had / would do this ?

Avril

It is not defensible, it was unreasonable, and very likely racist. People who are frightened and in pain, in the most vulnerable position possible, are sometimes going to make unreasonable requests. Sometimes they might be reasonable if we had more info (confusion over language barrier etc).

Her request was not honoured. So what? Is it really front page news that somewhere there is either a racist woman who has had a baby, or a woman who made a bizarre request before being wheeled off to theatre?

My example with the perfume was to show that ignoring requests that seem unreasonable is not always kind.

i wouldnt have cared if jack the ripper was in the room, i cant understand why she would be thinking about the colour of her carers at a time like that.

I know what you mean avril.

The request was made. It was racist and ridiculous. The hospital refused the request. What is there to investigate? The request was handled appropriately. The only thing to investigate would be why the woman was racist, which would be a good thing to investigate in general, but not necessarily by one NHS trust IYSWIM.

If the request had been made and granted then a full investigation would be required.

I think she should be investigated by SS as she will feed that child with all sorts of extreme and hateful teachings about other people.

yes, that makes more sense to me, imsonottelling. she's a racist fuckwit, they said no, what's there to inquire into? how people are racist? ask nick griffin.

Message withdrawn

They'll be more of this... Being racist seems to be the 'new' black...

A friend of mine is a retired midwife - born in India but a nurse then midwife for nearly 40 years with the NHS. She said it was not uncommon for women in our area to ask for a white midwife, though it was becoming less common by the time she retired.

When I was pregnant with twins back in 2002 my MIL came to an appointment with me (don't ask) and on meeting the lovely, male, Chinese registrar who was looking after me said in a loud voice (probably loud enough for him to hear) "you know you can ask, don't you, to have an ENGLISH doctor?" I was utterly mortified, and sent her from the room. Ironically, three weeks later it was a white (though female) doctor, covering for the Chinese man, whose negligence led to the death of one my twins. As they say - be careful what you wish for.

I have some non-white doctor friends who work in hospitals and as GPs and sadly they report that this kind of thing is fairly common. They have to remain professional in the face of such vile attitudes.

veryscreeeaaamlawn I am so sorry for your loss.

When i had my booking appt for ds3 the midwife was telling me about a French lady she had seen earlier. She wanted to request a french-speaking midwife when she went into labour (despite being fluent in english)
midwife kindly pointed out that actually, she really couldn't guarantee that, midwives work on shifts etc etc, she may be lucky, but probably not.

lady then said she was travelling to France when she was x weeks pregnant, what would happen if she went into labour.
to which the midwife replied

"well, you'll get a french speaking midwife"

lol

the investigation was into how it was handled.
perhaps they rtried to accomodate her? don't know, it doesn't really say does it. but clearly more to it than just her requesting and them saying no. potherwise why would people have complained about how it was handled?

Thanks ImSoNotTelling - just wanted to illustrate the point that these requests have nothing to do with professional competence and everything to do with blind prejudice.

I think that I am surprised that this made the news. Racist comments/abuse/attacks seem to be very common around here, and our hospital is one where a large number of staff come from overseas and speak little English. I can only imagine that a story of this nature would be news if the hospital had, to some extent, been seen by the staff to pander to this particular patient eg by brining in a white consultant to deal with complications etc. Otherwise the story is that "hospital doesn't pander to racist patient", and that is a daily occurrence at our local hospital.

I'm really surprised the hospital says this is the first time they've dealt with this. In my experience working in maternity units, this is not uncommon (though used to be a lot more common - I think generally things have improved). Best practice is absolutely to refuse to collude with racism.

The language thing is an interesting one. As you probably know, non-EU health workers have to pass a language test (or is that just doctors?) and I think most people living in big cities these days are used to Caribbean, African and East Asian accents, though I accept that if you live in some parts of the country that may be more of a problem.

I had really substandard care at one point in my pregnancy. Basically, I had problems at my 20 week scan and this was explained to me, I was told I was at very high risk of a range of genetic abnormalities, and offered termination, all by an Italian consultant who I could barely understand. They had no leaflets, no counselling on offer, just a brisk offer of abortion by someone who could barely speak English. I don't think it's racist to think that is inappropriate. Communication is a core part of the clinical role, after all. If there weren't such terrible staff shortages in the NHS, it probably wouldn't happen.

Blimey! I am white and had a Nigerian midwife for the first part of my labour. She was lovely. When she went off shift she said 'Thank you for being so nice'. I have often wondered about what she said.

The midwife who delivered dd was a Muslim and she and dh (in the Army) had a good chat about Afghanistan.

According to the Express it seems that the consultant may have initially agreed to the patient's request, hence the inquiry. A racist patient simply isn't a news story unfortunately. A consultant agreeing to pander to a racist is a whole different ballgame.

'Have your say' has been taken out from under that Express story. Did they get too many racists attacking the hospital for not saying 'yes, yes, of course?'

Rules for overseas docs are barking. Any EU doc can come here and pretend to be, for e.g., a GP, even if they are a cosmetic surgeon who has never practised or trained as a GP and whatever their standard of English. While competent English speakers with qualifications recognised by the UK Royal Colleges have to take language tests and jump all sorts of hurdles.