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| Phil Woolas & Patricia Hewitt: Something Stupid in Common? |
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| Sunday, 01 April 2007 | |
 What Patricia Hewitt said:
A Department of Health press release later rolled back with this clarification:
So from being an issue of breaches of professional conduct by GPs based on their faith, Hewitt goes on later to say it's actually an issue whereby Muslim women feel uncomfortable in going to GPs of the same background as them. Understandable - people from all sorts of backgrounds feel better talking to complete strangers about private matters whether they be of a medical, legal or financial nature. The DoH press release as above also mentioned the Muslim Women's Network report. It does back up the contention that there is nervousness in dealing with people you know. It does not however back up Hewitt's initial claim of specific breaches (the only such case it does mention involves a Hindu GP). She is thus effectively claiming that women feel more comfortable talking to her about problems with their GPs than the General Medical Council or indeed the Muslim Women's Network whose detailed report did not uncover this nugget. We must also assume that this is a widespread problem among Muslim GPs, else why else should Hewitt bring this to everyone's attention. The case involving the Hindu GP betrays that this is not about faith. It's about doctors who know the patients they are dealing with. This could affect any GP whatever their faith or ethnic origin. It is not as if a white GP who converted to Islam would feel the need to divulge his or her patient's details. The reality, depite claiming "chapter and verse" is that Hewitt's initial comments were glib ones which charitably we could say were not thought through. She should apologise for that otherwise the less charitable interpretation is that they were absolutely thought through. Source: osamasaeed.org           Readers have left 3 comments.
Kathy:
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Patricia Hewitt, like most of her Cabinet colleagues is an Islamophobe. I can neither imagine any Muslim lady wanting to speak to her in confidence or indeed for Hewitt to show any sympathy in listening to any Muslim lady who did try to do so.
We have never had such a false, arrogant and indeed useless Health Secretary as she has been. She has ruined our NHS and is now obviously trying to ruin the Muslim Doctor/patient relationship. She really cannot be taken seriously because truth and honesty are two words which she does not seem to understand. If she really does want to do something to help Muslims, both male and female in their experiences in the NHS, she would do better to root out the racist and Islamophobic staff who work in the NHS. I can say this as I have nursed for 40 years and have witnessed the increase in racist attitudes by my colleagues, especially over these last few years. She of course will not recognise this as she is so far removed from what is really happening in our NHS today that she may as well be on the moon.
(1)
2007-04-01 13:49:10
Joy1:
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The Health Secretary makes a useful point. If there are actual cases of Muslim women experiencing difficulty in regards to confidentiality, we ought to have a public debate. We need to ensure, each and every General Practitioner (GP) is equipped to deal with all kinds of situations even with people from within their own communities. This is simply not an attack on the Muslim community.
The Muslim Women's Network on Health, which produced a report in December claiming some women were afraid to consult their GP because of concern over confidentiality. Spokesman Haleh Afshar said: "In our report we said this is a concern shared by all women, but the difficulty for Muslim women is that sometimes they don't have the option of going to a GP outside their community. According to the Network, “Patricia Hewitt has taken this on board. We are asking for the possibility of interpreters to enable these women to move beyond their community." The GMC said 11 doctors had been referred to a disciplinary committee in the past year over allegations of disclosure of information. It said it could not provide information on their religion.
(2)
2007-04-01 20:08:24
Thoughtful:
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It sees that what is being suggested is that we should be employing less muslim doctrs and more white doctrs as the supposed 'problem' would not exist if this were so... or so we are led to beleive.
(3)
2007-04-02 13:56:34
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