THE SUNDAY TIMES: ONE of Britain’s most eminent consultants has claimed white male doctors are being denied bonuses because of politically correct “reverse discrimination” by the National Health Service.
David Rosin, a former vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons, says female and ethnic minority consultants are being given preferential treatment to meet artificial quotas.
Rosin, also a former president of the Association for Cancer Surgery, failed to get the top “platinum award” award 10 years in a row despite being backed in his application by the royal college and his NHS trust.
He said: “When I asked a previous president [of the Royal College of Surgeons] why I had been unsuccessful, the answer came back immediately: ‘What do you expect? You are not black, you are not female and you have all four limbs.’ ”
Rosin’s comments are likely to provoke a row about whether policies to promote equal opportunities in the NHS have led to positive discrimination. Figures show a dramatic increase in the number of women and ethnic minorities winning merit awards over the past five years. They can add up to £73,000 to a consultant’s annual salary of about £112,000.
Ministers and NHS chiefs have been encouraging more women and ethnic minorities to apply. Supporters say that in the past the vast majority of the extra payments went to an “old boys’ network” of sometimes “mediocre” white male consultants.
However, Rosin, who retired from his NHS post as a senior consultant surgeon at St Mary’s NHS Trust hospital, London, in June, believes it has now tipped into positive discrimination.
“It is time that someone spoke up concerning the reverse discrimination with respect to merit awards,” he wrote in a letter to the magazine Hospital Doctor. “In the politically correct environment in which we live, there is now definitely reverse discrimination.” Doctors’ revolt at anti-white bias (more) By Sarah-Kate Templeton
Mark Alexander
