This summer, we reported on the brilliant decision of the Scottish wing of the Much Vaunted NHS© which forbade health care workers from eating at their desks during Ramadan. The powers that be were fearful of upsetting (and/or offending) Muslim co-workers and patients. I opined at the time that this seemed, well, unseemly, never imagining that it could get worse.
Silly me:
Believe it or not, it actually gets even worse:
"The lengthy procedure...also includes providing fresh bathing water."
I really don't want to go there.
One presumes that this is for the Muslim patients' foot-baths, not daily (weekly?) bathing, per se.
Currently, only patients being treated in a few hospitals are privy to this over-the-top medical care, but that's slated to expand next year.
Again, I have no objection to patients being afforded a certain degree of comfort, but this puts actual, sick folks at risk, as well as representing a significant additional drain on an already strained health delivery system. If Muslim patients want to pay for this themselves, fine, have at it. But it seems to me that it's not the business of health care providers to render this sort of treatment. That's what volunteers (and paid private nurses) are for.
Of course, this is a nationalized health care system, so what the gummint says, goes. There's really no option for health care providers to demur, since the state has determined what's covered, and what's not.
Gosh, don't you wish we had such a system, too?
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