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NHS Staff Face Sack If They Discuss Religion
Caroline Petrie fell foul of the system by offering a Christian to prayer to one of her patients. Photo courtesy of The Telegraph
All National Health Service employees risk losing their job if they discuss their religious beliefs with colleagues or patients, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.

Following overwhelming public support for Caroline Petrie, the Christian nurse who was suspended after she offered to pray for an elderly patient, her employers have caved [sic] said she could return to her job.

The row over her treatment has reached the House of Commons, with Sir Patrick Cormack, the Tory MP for South Staffordshire, claiming that her case had highlighted the “utter absurdities” of political correctness.

Although Mrs Petrie was relieved her ordeal was over, fears have been raised that new rules could lead to the dismissal of any health care worker who tries to talk about their faith to others.

A little-noticed document published by the Department of Health last month gives warning that attempts by doctors or nurses to preach to other staff or patients will be treated as harassment or intimidation under disciplinary procedures.

But it does not make clear the limits of acceptable discussion about religion.

Faith groups said the guidelines were so vague that they could mean action could be taken against anyone who talks about their beliefs to fellow workers or patients. >>> By Martin Beckford and Caroline Gammell | Thursday, February 5, 2009

THE TELEGRAPH: Nurse Caroline Petrie: I Will Continue Praying for Patients

The nurse suspended for offering to pray for a patient has vowed not to change because she cannot separate her faith from her profession.

Caroline Petrie, who has been reinstated as a community nurse, said she did not think she would be doing her job properly if she was forbidden from offering spiritual comfort to her patients.

"It is me, it is a natural thing for me to do," she said. "If I am nursing, I would offer prayer to somebody and I am not going to change."

Mrs Petrie, 45, from Weston-super-Mare, was removed from duties last December after asking an elderly patient in Winscombe, Somerset, if she wanted her to pray for her.

Although the 79-year-old woman was not offended, she was "taken aback" by the suggestion and reported the comment to her carer.

Mrs Petrie was subsequently suspended on suspicion of failing to "demonstrate a personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity", while the hospital investigated.

Two months later, after her case appeared in the media, North Somerset Primary Care Trust relented and said she could come back to work, but Mrs Petrie did not know about the decision until she was contacted by The Daily Telegraph.

Yesterday the mother-of-two said she would behave in exactly the same way: "I cannot divide my faith from my nursing care, I have to be the person I want to be. >>> By Caroline Gammell | Friday, February 6, 2009

THE TELEGRAPH: Hospitals Betray Their History by Banishing Prayer

It is ironic that the country which fostered the Christian tradition of nursing chose to suspend a nurse who wished to pray for her patient, says Bishop Nazir-Ali.

Hospitals began in the Eastern part of the Christian Church, inspired by Christ’s example of serving and caring for the poor, the sick and the needy. They spread rapidly to the west and were closely associated with religious orders and their duty to offer hospitality to any in need. The oldest hospital in the land, I believe, is in Rochester and it is called St Bartholomew’s, like its more famous name-sake in London. The names — St Thomas’s, St Richard’s, St Mary’s — betray their origins and quite often these foundations continue to have connections with the Church. How is it, then, that the Christian faith is becoming more and more marginal in the very places that owe their origin to it? Why are chapels being replaced by “multi-faith rooms” and how can it be that a nurse, Caroline Petrie, can be suspended for offering to pray for a patient who could have and did say “no, thank you”. Why did the matter not end there?

Praise be! Mrs Petrie is being allowed to return to work — but are other people vulnerable to the same kind of treatment? People’s personal beliefs and their professional practice are often closely inter-related. Of all professions, nursing is one that is firmly rooted in the Christian tradition. It arose first in the religious orders and although it began to become secularised after the Reformation, its Christian foundations were re-discovered by people like Florence Nightingale: the founder, in many ways, of modern nursing. During a visit to Egypt she studied the work of the Sisters of Charity at Alexandria and also of the order of deaconesses in Germany. Whilst in the Crimea, she is known to have prayed for the soldiers who were her patients. It was her inspiration which led to the training of nurses in a systematic way in this country and she was hugely influential in the increase of Christian medical missions in Africa, Asia and elsewhere. In many parts of the world, these missions pioneered the practice of modern medicine and, especially, the training and use of nurses in hospitals. This debt is widely acknowledged in the countries concerned. How ironic that it is in Britain that a nurse is threatened with the loss of her job for offering to pray for someone who was unwell – especially when it seems that prayer at the beginning of work was routine for nurses in many British hospitals right up to the 1960s and there are numerous prayers available for nurses to use. >>> By Bishop Nazir-Ali | Saturday, February 7, 2009

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