Formal complaint made about me because I am housing a refugee who may or may not carry diseases

[Jynxed]

Please help me handle this as I am feeling very upset.

For a couple of years I have had occasional guests to stay under the Homes for Refugees scheme. This is where asylum seekers are awarded Right to Remain but the flip side of this is that they have to leave home office accommodation almost immediately, with no money and no support.

Last week I was asked to take in a young man who would be made homeless within 2 days and he arrived this weekend. He is a doctor and it came out in conversation that he had been exposed to TB through his work, had some bacteria markers, and was now receiving monitoring and treatment in the UK to treat this.

I have come across this before, but did a little research to check that there was no risk to my family. I was satisfied that latent TB is not a live disease, and treatment prevents it from developing, so in effect my guest did not have the disease, could not spread it, and was receiving treatment to ensure it could not develop.

I have a friend at work who helps me with translation and explaining strange British customs when needed, as she speaks a couple of languages common in the refugee community. I was telling her about my guest’s very early x/ray the next morning and about how to direct him.

Another colleague overheard and flipped her
lid. Lots of horrible comments about “these people coming over here and bringing their diseases “ and how I had put the whole office at risk without any consideration, and she was reporting me to the Director. I tried to explain that latent TB is not TB and of course I would not put my family at risk if there was any concern. She carried on shouting at me really aggressively, and made lots of remarks which I regard as pretty racist. She has submitted her complaint and I have been called to write a statement.

I felt really upset about it and would welcome any help to both support the fact that there is no risk, and that I have not broken any occupational health type rules. What do I say in my defence?!
Thanks for any help you can offer.

Your colleague will likely be sacked.

Just tell the truth to the Director and leave it at that.

You have done nothing wrong.

It’s amazing how upset Changey gets when someone hands back the insults she has freely dished out herself.

My brother had TB as a child. I had latent TB from him so had to have regular x-rays in case it progressed. We were both white British children. And no, we didn't get it from immigrants.

So I know what TB is. I also know what racism is.

It always is with this type.

I can't even bring myself to muster up a reply to the poster that professed she'd rather I died (because apparently I'm a bigot !) and the alcohol dependent non working criminal refugee spreading TB would be her choice of person to welcome in.

She has zero idea about who I am, what I do and the thousands of people I've selflessly helped.

I expect it'd blow her mind that my Muslim, Indian and Pakistani colleagues (some of who I'm forever in debt to) were disgusted at how this immigrant was spreading TB carelessly due to non meds compliance.

But oh no: me saying that means I hate all brown,black and foreign people (even though the guy was white) as you correctly say : it's all very selective.

You do realise my Pakistani/Indian/Muslim friends and colleagues (genuinely) were horrified at the way in which I caught tb and the fact the local community is seeing a rise in that particular community (non working eastern Europeans with high rates of alcoholism) you do realise this isn't a brown/black/white thing don't you ? You do realise brown and black people both natives and legal immigrants also don't approve of unfetted disease ridden non society contributing people coming here to drain our systems?

No. I didn't think you had that insight.its obvious.

I don’t care about the migrant component and
have not mentioned it.
But i totally understand that someone in the situation of the colleague got terrified at the mention of TB and had an unhinged reaction.
What I find callous is that OP is too ignorant to realise the terror and shock she caused and went straight to file a complaint about racism.
And the way OP just attacked another poster who shared her story is beyond the pale and absolutely not empathetic or kind.

I won't be responding to you.

@changedchangeychange this thread is pathetic, so sorry you’re getting such a rough ride, nothing you said warranted that vitriol.

The fact that you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there.

Thankyou.

I realise that there literally is no reasoning with people who say things as abhorrent as some of her words. That poster obviously cannot fathom out that being aggrieved by non working immigrants that have many health problems including addictions and bringing with it TB in higher than average numbers to parts of our country (of which I've been personally affected) is something to feel aggrieved about.

Despite the fact these immigrants I talk of are white European: that poster somehow has extrapolated I'm 'racist' a 'bigot' and clearly hate all brown people !?! Ludicrous. Absolutely ludicrous. I do find this bizarre vitriol very typical of extreme liberals.

Anyway, thanks for your support.

I have shown nothing but compassion for your experience, it sounds horrible. I just can’t understand how you are linking it to my post. I absolutely accept the seriousness of TB, and support the screening of migrants. But I also accept that non migrants can also have and spread TB (it has never been eradicated in the UK) and I am clear that latent TB is not a live disease and cannot be passed to others. You unfortunately caught the infection from someone who was not a refugee, and the issue was their drug / alcohol use and non-compliance with healthcare. The disease is not unfettered if the NHS / Gov is tackling it - it’s the chaotic life styles which undermine this, and it’s lack of support for certain underclass which worsens the situation. Do you hate all drug and alcohol users as much as you hate migrants? Do you hate UK born non-working people as well as Eastern Europeans? I don’t really understand your comment about having friends of different cultures being horrified that you caught TB - of course they would be. Why does this suggest I have a lack of insight?

Telling a poster to go see a shrink after saying she had proffered insults (she hadn’t )? To tell her she should disappear because of bigotry? What am I missing on the compassion front? Not much.

None of you has shown any, to the shocked colleague or to the people who came here to explain it’s a very scary disease indeed.

Lots of horrible comments about “these people coming over here and bringing their diseases “ and how I had put the whole office at risk without any consideration, and she was reporting me to the Director

Did you miss the post where this employee went to file a complaint about OP which could’ve caused her difficulty? This was before Op made a complaint?

Did you just expect Op to #bekind and suck it up after this co-worked ranted at her and made a complaint ? They’re lucky that unlike them it sounds as if OP kept her cool and just responded more formally via a complaint.

They obviously offended more than one person with their outburst as well since Op isn’t the only one who reported them.

Counselling is not “seeing a shrink”. That is an incredibly out of touch and unhelpful interpretation. Changey clearly has trauma which needs to be unpicked. I’m not sure where i told her to disappear??

OP, it’s obvious you have decided you are an empathetic professional and nothing will make you change your mind.
Your posts show a radically different energy however. But you do you.

Thankyou for your concern, but I don't have 'trauma'. It is frustrating though that there is a large community within this part of the country (eastern European immigrants, low skill level or non working, high alcohol addiction rates that are bringing higher than average numbers of TB into the area that have affected people like me and puts at risk many others ) it also puts at risk every other health care professional (and lay people that are even less aware and informed) which includes brown, black, Muslim, Sikh, gay, and goodness knows what else people.

How you and one other poster have deduced that to hold grievance with this and be now aware of these facts =bigotry. This black and white thinking : where you lump every single person of minority groups into one big homogenous mass , and to talk about one set of facts around one particular group must = you're against ALL minority people in the UK and therefore must be a BIGOT is so unreasonable and quite frankly so ludicrous, I don't think I can even begin to explain , let alone respond.

It's not me that needs to see the shrink.

@nfkl (I quoted a post of youra that came off in posting)

Continously telling other people they are naive or ill informed because they have a different view to you. Is insulting.. so is calling someone a bigot
So they are kind of even there.

There is an art to expressing your views and backing them up many of us do not get right in written text.

To take the original post. The colleague used then phrase "these people coming over here and bringing their diseases “ that is absolutely racist. Rasism is be belief that humans can be divided into a hierarchy on the basis of their differences in race and ethnicity" by using the phrase "these people" the colleague was racist. She saw herself as a Brit as above "those people"
This is not the "be kind" as some put in such a derogatory term. Had the colleague actually been willing to educate herself she would have sought further clarification not necessarily from op as she may not have felt op was the best to do so. However this should have been done prior to the complaint.

Now colleague may have not changed her stance and still made a complaint. She may also have come to what the outcome of the complaint was and not made a complaint. That part of her issue is not racist.

You can have legitimate concerns and still offer them in a non racist way. In this case colleague should have concentrated on the perceived sickness not othering others

Poster changed should perhaps look at how she is responding. Her original post agrees with the racist comment. Had she instead commented around this is my experience of TB and this is the research. She would have had a very different experience.
It is also worth remembering that research at times gets disproven. We can all aim to put our views across without insulting others even if we disagree.

25 years ago the UK were screening people coming to live and work in the country for TB. I think you are minimising this situation. Diseases that are under control or eradicated in this country should not be brought back in because of poor controls.

Screening still takes place - that is the whole origin of this post. Perhaps we should again be screening everyone, not just new arrivals, as a teacher on this thread - she had a chest X-ray at the start of her career.

Agreed. OP was in the wrong for terrifying someone with whom she works. She rightly got reported and then responded with her own racist claim. Unsurprising if OP hadn't been reported there would have been no racism complaint, says it all. OP pretends to be the good guy but I'm not buying it.

You often eavesdrop on private conversations?

London and other cities have cases of TB. Patients are treated IF they turn up at the surgery and you have to trust that they'll take the meds in a timely manner and the full course.