Archive for the ‘24.dk’ Category
Muslims claw and bite home care workers
According to the Danish People’s Party spokesman, healthcare personnel are being clawed, hit, and spitted on by elderly Muslims.
This is however not something the union for professional healthcare providers (FOA) is aware of.
Some Danes do not want to be treated by doctors, nurses, and midwives bearing Muslim head covering.
According to the Danish People’s Party, discrimination can also go the other way.
“Apparently you are to be reported if you say no to head scarves. So I would also like to turn it around and say ‘healthcare providers must also write a report when they are bitten, clawed at, and spit on by Muslim residents and patients’.”
This is what healthcare spokesperson Lise-Lott Blixt from the Danish People’s Party said yesterday morning on the TV program ‘Good Morning, Denmark’.
The statement was made in connection to the debate on patients’ rights to say no to treatment by healthcare provides wearing headscarves.
“Look at us as people”, Lise-Lott Blixt challenged Noura Bendali, a midwife at Hvidovre Hospital who has received negative reactions to her headscarf.
FOA: This rarely happens
Based on her own experience as a social and healthcare assistant, Lise-Lott Blixt gave examples of healthcare providers that had been bitten, hit, and spitted on by elderly Muslims.
“This is an instance of special treatment”, she claimed.
But according to the healthcare providers’ union, FOA, this is a rarely occurring phenomenon.
“The Danish People’s Party must have studies, we do not know anything about. I cannot recall any concrete instances like those described here,” said Karen Stæhr, chairperson for the Social and Healthcare division of FOA.
On the other hand, according to FOA, the elderly often react negatively to care providers with headscarves or those with other ethnic backgrounds than Danish.
“It seems absurd to scare people with these allegations when there is a need for more qualified hands in the healthcare sector.
We would hope that there is more to this claim than the one about cakes and juice”, said Karen Stæhr, referring to the Danish People’s Party’s accusation that Muslims plunder cakes and juice from doctors’ waiting rooms.
“I have been bitten”
FOA has just conducted a study on abuse and attacks on staff in healthcare.
The staff is at risk of both violence and verbal assault as part of their work, the study shows.
But there is no sign that the elderly Muslims represent a particular problem.
Lise-Lott Blixt confirmed these findings for 24timer.
“It happens regularly in the healthcare provider sector. I was bitten myself once,” she said.
