Muslim staff escape NHS hygiene rule

[Graham Kennedy]

Source

Female staff who follow the Islamic faith will be allowed to cover their arms to preserve their modesty despite earlier guidance that all staff should be "bare below the elbow".

The Department of Health has also relaxed rules prohibiting jewellery so that Sikh members of staff can wear bangles linked with their faith, providing they are pushed up the arm while the medic treats a patient.

The Mail on Sunday reported the change had been made after female Muslims objected to being required to expose their arm below the elbow under guidance introduced by Alan Johnson when he was health secretary in 2007.

Interesting...

[Mikey]

I'd say enforce the rule only if incontrovertible evidence can be shown that covering the arms endangers patients. Otherwise, there's no reason to abrogate someone's faith.

[McAvoy]

What is bad about exposing her arm?

[Captain Picard's Hair]

I must admit I can't quite see how covered arms constitutes a medical risk to begin with.

[Captain Seafort]

Clothing carries dirt. Given that everyone who goes into or out of a ward is required to wash their hands and lower arms thoroughly, having sleeves that completely covers the lower arms is downright stupid.

[McAvoy]

That is true.

I just don't understand why their arms have to be covered. Surely their faces are not?

[Tsukiyumi]

I just don't understand why their arms have to be covered.

Modesty and purity, of course.

"Damn those sexy elbows! Always distracting me!"

[Reliant121]

Of course, a Muslim woman would say that it protects them from being made a sex item. Most Muslim women seem to genuinely believe it too.

[Graham Kennedy]

Maybe an answer to this problem would be to produce masses of "Burqa Porn". Then encourage young men to yell suggestive comments at passing muslim Ladies along the lines of "Phwoaarrrrr! Look at the Burqa on that!"

Make the Burqa a sexually objectifying object and they might stop wearing it on that basis.

Just a thought...

[Deepcrush]

Considering it's hard to find a woman in that part of the world that hasn't been raped, molested or otherwise sexually tortured... It's not all that surprising for them to retain a high level of caution.

[Graham Kennedy]

I wonder if the move to treat women as something that needs to be hidden away and sexuality as something shameful isn't a factor in those rapes and molestations in the first place.

[Deepcrush]

I would say it's more matter of their cowardice that they feel the need to harm those who they should be protecting.