Asian Accomodations

A BBC report has said that doctors would be raising the issues of talking prayers and religion in general with patients at the next meeting of the British Medical Association (BMA) and its representatives, which will begin soon.

Bringing a different perspective to the argument started by medical staff, the spokesperson of the Department of Health commented that the responsibility of fulfilling the spiritual needs of patients was with the NHS Chaplaincy Service.

Two recent incidents symbolize the growing intolerance toward medical staff who tend to express their personal religious feelings. Anand Rao, a bank nurse, lost his job after he advised people in a workplace role-play situation, where the participants were playing patients, to trust God. In yet another recent incident, Caroline Petrie, a nurse from North Somerset was suspended after she offered to pray for an old patient.

Cancer specialist Dr Bernadette Birtwhistle, who is also a part of the Christian Medical Fellowship sounded perturbed at the latest development when he said that there was too much of a restriction on doctors and medical staff and that their freedom of speech was being curtailed. Furthermore, he added that it was getting difficult for them to talk to patients and discuss with them about their religious beliefs because of all the external pressure against it.

Jonathan Chamberlain, a partner at Wragge & Co offering a legal perspective said that the situation could be managed better if the employers who did not want their staff to talk religion to the patients put the message across in a clear manner so that the staff would know what the exact employment policy was. Workplace Law Training’s CIPD - Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development courses will help you to gain a broad grasp of employment law so you can set your own organisation’s policies and procedures in context.