Reasonable Accomodation?
Certainly not to my mind. At least assuming this story is true.A couple is facing a $750 hospital bill after they had to leave a ward in Kingston General Hospital's maternity ward because a Muslim woman was breastfeeding her newborn.Would we accomodate a Roman Catholic patient who insisted that only Roman Catholics could share the room? Well, once we might have. So the question here is how long will it take before we stop being so F%^ing Stupid?
John Kennedy said he and another man were also forbidden from using the sink in the shared bathroom to dampen cloths so they could clean their babies.
He and his wife and the other couple were moved out of the room on religious grounds that were made clear to him by medical staff on the floor, who said unrelated men are forbidden from being in the room while the Muslim woman was breastfeeding.
h/t Kathy whose question "Muslim or Crazy?" seems like an apposite one.
posted by Alan Adamson @ 12:09 PM
6 Comments:
Remembering that the first hospitals in Canada (Hotel-Dieu, Quebec, 1636 and Hotel-Dieu, Montreal, 1645) were opened by saintly Catholic women who admitted Native people (hoping to convert them) I doubt that people of other faiths were ever refused in Catholic hospitals. Except maybe in very specific cases where hostility against the Church of Rome would have been shown. As a R.N., who worked at St-Michael in the 60s, I know that women wanting abortions were not admitted. The procedure wasn't done in Catholic institutions. Abortionists opened their own clinics.
A bit different than the present case, but not that much. I would suggest to Muslims that to accomodate their need of privacy, they build their own clinics. Or pay for private accomodations in our general hospitals. They are not ordinary immigrants but it should be clearly pointed out, when they move here, that we have already a solid legal system and lifestyle which cannot be modified to fit in with the different beliefs of each particular group of immigrants.
It's so very simple. I'm surprised by the conflicts.
Thanks, Claude, for the history.
What surprises and appalls me is that it is the people who had NO special demands that wound up being charged extra money, not the people asking for what seem pretty special privileges.
Claude, I mistakenly rejected your burqa ban comment. Could you make it again, please? Apologies.
Done, with the proper post.
In this situation, I only hope that Mr.Kennedy refrained from expressing his frustration with racial overtones. It happens to all of us, sometimes. Something like, "Just wait a minute. I was born in this country, after all..."
Well, he had a perfectly good complaint, "Why are we paying extra? - they're the ones asking for special treatment!" Doesn't matter where the heck anyone came from.
I agree. I would have made a much bigger fuss at the time it happened. I guess he didn't realise he would have to pay extra for the private room.
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