Sunday, September 30, 2007

An inconvenient consultation

Muslim dentist ‘made patient cover her head’ - Times Online

From the story:

A Muslim dentist insisted that a young woman wear an Islamic headscarf before he would agree to treat her for toothache, the General Dental Council was told yesterday.

The patient, a community nurse, alleges that she reluctantly told Omer Butt, 31, who runs a dental practice in Bury, Greater Manchester, that she was a nonpractising Muslim.

It is alleged that the dentist then told her that he would refuse to register her as an NHS patient if she did not cover her head. She was in so much pain that she agreed to borrow a scarf from a nurse at the clinic.

OK, so how does this work with the Muslim doctors we have in Australia? If they work in our public health system, do they have an issue with seeing Muslim women (of which we have an increasing number) if their head is uncovered?

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