{"id":40954,"date":"2024-11-15T14:49:34","date_gmt":"2024-11-15T14:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/?p=40954"},"modified":"2024-11-15T14:49:34","modified_gmt":"2024-11-15T14:49:34","slug":"weve-been-silenced-claim-nhs-doctors-supporting-palestine-and-climate-activism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/2024\/11\/15\/weve-been-silenced-claim-nhs-doctors-supporting-palestine-and-climate-activism\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe\u2019ve been silenced\u201d claim NHS doctors supporting Palestine and climate activism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video height=\"404\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 720 \/ 404;\" width=\"720\" controls src=\"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/FINAL-EDIT-PALESTINE-TALK-VIDEO-HOLLY-3-2.mp4\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a talk for health workers last night, NHS consultants claimed their employers and medical bodies are &#8216;silencing&#8217; them on issues surrounding Palestine and the climate crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Medical professionals shared their experiences of Palestinian event notices being removed from internal intranets, pro-Palestinian NHS workers suffering discrimination at work and doctors being struck off after becoming involved in activism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr Diana Warner is one of three Bristol doctors who have been suspended by the General Medical Council (GMC) for having criminal records due to environmental activism. Warner questioned the &#8216;apoliticisation&#8217; of medicine and healthcare and added: \u201cDoctors have a professional responsibility to be concerned about the wider components of public health\u201d such as racism and the climate crisis.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The racism experienced by Palestinians in the NHS was highlighted by Dr Thanos Tsapas, a consultant psychiatrist who visited Gaza in 2021. Tsapas said: \u201cAnti-Palestinian racism is very common in the NHS, for example by the exclusion of people who advocate for Palestine in the workplace. There&#8217;s always a culture of neutrality\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr Rania Ibrahim, a British-Sudanese Doctor<strong>,<\/strong> spoke about the racism &#8216;baked into&#8217; the NHS and quoted recent research demonstrating &#8216;racist&#8217; health disparities: \u201cIn the UK Black women are 3.7 to 4 times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than white women. It makes me feel affronted just seeing that statistic\u201d.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ibrahim also highlighted the silencing of the war in Sudan, which has claimed a similar number of lives as the Palestinian war but has attracted almost no news or social media coverage: \u201cIt doesn\u2019t get the same coverage because it\u2019s an African war and Black lives don\u2019t matter\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Consultants spent the second half of the meeting discussing \u201chow we can unsilence ourselves\u201d and \u201cempowering ourselves to speak up\u201d, with NHS Consultant Dr Rachel Doves saying: \u201cIt\u2019s so encouraging to know that I\u2019m not alone\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">As healthcare workers gather in front of the Prime Minister\u2019s office in London, holding banners with the names of over 200 doctors killed by Israel, a British doctor is overcome with emotion while reading an urgent message from the director of Al-Shifa Hospital in <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Gaza?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Gaza<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/nhLjD0P5dq\">pic.twitter.com\/nhLjD0P5dq<\/a><\/p>&mdash; PALESTINE ONLINE \ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8 (@OnlinePalEng) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OnlinePalEng\/status\/1723332934801703309?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 11, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A spokesperson for the GMC said that doctors are entitled to &#8220;their own political opinions&#8221; and that the organisation&#8217;s focus is &#8220;on the effect that expressions of political or other personal beliefs may have on patients\u2019 or public confidence in the profession.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Similar issues have been raised at other NHS trusts, including at Barts Health NHS Trust, where a spokesperson said: \u201cWe are reviewing the policy to provide further guidance on the use of political symbols at work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a talk for health workers last night, NHS consultants claimed their employers and medical bodies are &#8216;silencing&#8217; them on issues surrounding Palestine and the climate crisis. Medical professionals shared their experiences of Palestinian event notices being removed from internal intranets, pro-Palestinian NHS workers suffering discrimination at work and doctors being struck off after becoming [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":306,"featured_media":41085,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/306"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40954"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41088,"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40954\/revisions\/41088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uwejournalism.net\/bowernews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}