No nudie wrists in surgery scrub

Submitted by Dee (United States), Feb 27, 2008 at 05:06

Here is yet another Muslim demand for accomodation of their religious beliefs and practices, no matter how inappropriate or incompatible they are to the specific context. This is from The Daily Mail (UK), 2008 February 26th:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=519072&in_page_id=1770&in_page_id=1770

Headline: "Muslim medics refuse to roll up their sleeves in hygiene crackdown - because it's against their religion"

It says they're having "crisis" talks with the Muslims on the hospital medical staff, who insist that women must not be made to uncover their forearms for any reason, such as scrubbing off germs. Closer attention is being paid to enforcing hygiene rules, in an attempt to prevent the major outbreak of "superbug" disease.

Hygiene experts are advising that no exceptions should be allowed, but the Islamic Medical Association is protesting this rule as a violation of their religious beliefs.

It looks like the hospitals may have to set up separate facilities to allow Muslim women to scrub without others seeing their forearms. Some conservatives have noted that these are students being trained at the taxpayers' expense, so perhaps they have a duty to not put the hospital patients at added risk of contracting infectious diseases.

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