In UK, Medical Care Could Be Denied to Outspoken Christians in Cases That Are Not Emergencies
If you espouse a traditional biblical worldview, you might be left on your own to die in a British hospital.
Patients in the National Health Service, the publicly funded system that provides health care in the United Kingdom, could be denied treatment if a staff member feels victimized by something a patient says.
An NHS memo Tuesday cited a rise in staffers’ reports of discrimination last year, including “the highest levels of reported sexism and intolerance of religion and sexuality.”
It’s not hard to imagine that claims of “intolerance of sexuality” will be leveled against Christian patients who don’t embrace the LGBT agenda.
According to a report in the Telegraph on Wednesday, beginning in April, “any patient or hospital visitor found to be inflicting discriminatory or harassing behaviour on staff could be barred from receiving care, unless the case is an emergency.”
The scope of regulations previously included only physical violence against hospital personnel.
Based on the results of the 2019 NHS Staff Survey, incidences of discrimination rose from 5.8 percent to 7.2 percent in five years, so on its face, the inclusion of anti-discrimination protection makes sense.
Employers are responsible for making sure their place of business is not a hostile work environment for their employees. Sometimes that includes refusing services if the employee feels threatened or offended.
If the workplace is a cafe, it is an inconvenience for a barista to refuse a cup of coffee to that customer. But this is health care, literally a life-or-death situation. While there is an exception for emergencies, what about someone who is fighting stage 4 lung cancer? It isn’t an emergency like a heart attack, but without proper treatment, the patient will be just as dead.
These new protections leave patients vulnerable to the subjective opinion of the health care worker, who has the power to provide or deny life-saving treatment.
Increasingly, citizens across the pond are being shunned and persecuted for espousing a traditional, conservative Judeo-Christian worldview, and that no doubt will impact health care patients.
Catholic journalist Caroline Farrow was in hot water for using the “wrong” pronouns when referring to a transgender child, the BBC reported. She was called in to provide a taped statement to police until the accuser ultimately dropped the complaint on the grounds it was giving Farrow “a platform.”
A run-in with law enforcement is serious, but had the supposed victim in this case been a health care worker, the consequences could have been deadly.
Many people conflate a religious worldview with hatred and thus believe that folks who hold those views should be shut out of society. Already in China, there is a so-called social credit system and some American companies are beginning to adopt that model as well, even if that’s not what they’re calling it — yet.
It isn’t unreasonable, then, to conclude that a patient in the U.K. could be denied treatment not for his actions against a particular employee, but because of a broader belief he holds.
If it seems unfathomable that some oversight body would not intervene on behalf of the patient unfairly denied treatment, consider the case of Alphie Evans, the Liverpool infant who suffered from an undiagnosed degenerative neurological disease.
Doctors in the U.K. decided that the only course for Alphie was to remove life support. Alphie’s father, Thomas, a Catholic, requested the right to seek treatment outside the country and even petitioned Pope Francis for help. Following a lengthy public battle, the request to transfer him ultimately denied.
Alphie Evans died in a UK hospital after life support was withdrawn, just shy of his second birthday.
When the government obtains the power to give something, it also has the power to take it away.
The world is quickly becoming a place where citizens whose views are not left-leaning and in lockstep with the LGBT agenda are seen as unfit for public life. Gone are the days of civil tolerance for homosexuality. Today, the Orwellian thought police require complete submission to their worldview.
Someday very soon, a hospital patient’s religious beliefs could cost him his life.
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