This nurse should be helped! Please eMail the authorities on her behalf. SHOWER them with eMails! The supervisor who took this ridiculous, stupid, absurd decision should be SACKED, forthwith and WITHOUT ANY BENEFITS! I'm SAD to say that I am ASHAMED of my country! – ©Mark
THE TELEGRAPH: A nurse has been suspended from her job for offering to pray for an elderly patient's recovery from illness.
Caroline Petrie, a committed Christian, has been accused by her employers of failing to demonstrate a "personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity".
She faces disciplinary action and could lose her job over the incident.
Mrs Petrie, a married mother of two, says she has been left shocked and upset by the action taken against her.
She insists she has never forced her own religious beliefs on anyone but politely inquired if the elderly patient wanted her to pray for her – either in the woman's presence or after the nurse had left the patient's home.
"I simply couldn't believe that I have been suspended over this. I knew I hadn't done anything wrong. All I am trying to do is help my patients, many of whom want me to pray for them," she said.
Mrs Petrie, 45, is a community nurse employed by North Somerset Primary Care Trust to carry out home visits to sick and elderly patients. Nurse Suspended for Offering to Pray for Elderly Patient's Recovery >>> By Andrew Alderson, Chief Reporter | Saturday, January 31, 2009
Please eMail these stupid people in protest. Please let us defend this poor lady and her rights: pals@nsomerset-pct.nhs.uk
Or, if you prefer to write to them, please use the following address:
Waverley House.
Old Church Road,
Clevedon
North Somerset BS21 6NN
Or, if you prefer to telephone the stupid people:
Telephone : 01275 546770
Fax : 01275 546769
THE TELEGRAPH: God Bless the Nurse Who Offered Prayer
Nurse Petrie should not be censured for offering to pray for a patient, argues George Pitcher.
It used to be said by soldiers that there are no atheists in a foxhole.
Hospital chaplains may be tempted similarly to suggest that there are no atheists on an intensive-care ward.
That is patently untrue. But it is nonetheless the case that patients in the dark places of illness and their families and friends will find a capacity for prayer that they didn’t think they possessed elsewhere.
Medical staff and those who work in pastoral care know this and respond accordingly; while no doctor will invoke the spiritual overtly in his professional service, many doctors will concur with the value of patients being treated spiritually as well as physically. You don’t have to be a holistic crank to recognise that someone at peace spiritually enhances their chances of physical healing.
So it isn’t weird or inappropriate to respond to the suspension of Caroline Petrie, a Christian nurse in Weston-Super-Mare who offered to say a prayer for a 79-year-old patient after a home visit, with sadness or anger. One can’t imagine the godmother of the nursing profession, Florence Nightingale, responding with anything other than those emotions.
Much, of course, depends on the style and manner in which Nurse Petrie offered her prayer. If she told her elderly patient that she must offer her up because she would soon be dead and face the judgment of the Almighty, or that she must accept the Lord Jesus Christ as her saviour or rot in hell for all eternity, then we might reasonably assume that this was unhelpful pastoral support.
But it’s apparent from the testimony of May Phippen, her patient, that Nurse Petrie did nothing of the sort. The nurse’s Christianity may inform her caring ministry, but did not usurp it; Mrs Phippen reports that she did her work of dressing her legs efficiently and quietly and simply asked if Mrs Phippen would like her to pray for her and didn’t pursue the issue when the offer was declined.
For this, Nurse Petrie faces disciplinary action under “equality and diversity regulations” and could even lose her job. That seems an utter nonsense. There will be those who could be offended by the offer of Christian prayer by a nurse but, again, that must be an issue for the discretion of the professional, not a matter for employment law. >>> George Pitcher | Monday, February 2, 2009
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