h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Prayer isn't something that would offend me. I would (and have in the past) taken it as I want to take it. YUou're thinking nice thoughts for me, you hope I get better/things get easier etc.

Pushing beliefs on people is a different matter imo...

Matthew 6:5 "Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray while standing in synagogues and on street corners so that people can see them. Truly I say to you, they have their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you."

Not a very good Christian is she?

I agree SWL, but probably for slightly different reasons

on t'nursey thing - it was a repeat offence following a quiet word:

http://www.inspiremagazine.org.uk/news. ... ew&id=3125
"We have had two separate concerns reported from a carer and a patient about her actions,"
“This is not the first time that she has been warned about promoting her faith at work."

http://www.christianlegalcentre.com/view.php?id=680
for their bit on it.

Oh look....

On October 2008 Caroline Petrie was also warned by The Trust for offering a small, home-made prayer card to an elderly, male patient, who had happily accepted it. On this occasion, the patient's carer, who was with her at the time, raised concerns over the incident. Alison Withers, Mrs Petrie’s superior at the time, wrote to her at the end of November 2008 saying: ‘As a nurse you are required to uphold the reputation of your profession. Your NMC [Nursing Midwifery Council] code states that “you must demonstrate a personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity” and “you must not use your professional status to promote causes that are not related to health”. Caroline Petrie was asked to attend an equality and diversity course and warned: ‘If there is any further similar incident it may be treated as potential misconduct and the formal disciplinary procedure could be instigated.’

From http://www.christianlegalcentre.com/view.php?id=680 of all places.

So, in other words, she's already had a written warning about her conduct and ignored it completely. I wonder why this doesn't feature in the BBC article?

sorry, first link again:
http://www.inspiremagazine.org.uk/news.aspx?action=view&id=3125

"I wonder why this doesn't feature in the BBC article?"
or, indeed, any of them.

Simpost-tastic!

Well, it's mentioned here, along with the National Secular Society's response, though I doubt they'll be thrilled by their depiction as "an atheist group".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/7866934.stm

Note also the sneaky title:
'Atheists back nurse's suspension'

Implication: Aggressive atheists mount a campaign to drum the poor woman out of a job.

Probable Reality: Journo phones the National Secular Society and asks for a quote.

Yup, Media Literacy really is important. You have to read stories with an understanding of how journalists get their information and the pressures on them to create interesting stories to fill their websites/programmes/papers. If you understand this, you can how biased stories are often created by unbiased journalists.

People take offence over this?Really?You lot would be offended at such an offer?

I'm an atheist and in a similar situation I'd just accept the very kind thought of the poor deluded soul in front of me..I would NOT complain and I soooo would not complain because someone else MIGHT be offended in the same situation.

Of course you should be offended when you see someone being offensive/racist/sexist/ageist to someone else in your presence. However if you aren't offended in this case but complain because someone MIGHT be offended then the situation is becoming nuts.

I just can't see how a kind offer of someone praying for you is offensive..It's not as if she were being pressured to convert.

Incog wondering when we abandoned the live and let live attitude we were famous for as a nation....

I think the live-and-let-live attitude is at the centre of all this. The nurse is clearly trying to sneak religious practices into the lives of vulnerable people - a live-and-let-live attitude would mean leaving such things at the door when working with vulnerable patients.

With regards to the nurse she (Mrs Petrie) says that she has taken advice from the Christian Legal Centre, which aims to protect the religious freedom of people who follow the Christian faith.

Yes dear, and the lady concerned is aiming to protect other people who you might come in contact with who would like rational, positive care rather than asking the sky for help...leave your batty believes at home, just do the job you were trained to do...or would you like me to quote some Darwin at you?

"The BBC is considering the future of Carol Thatcher as a contributor after she was reported for using racist language during a private conversation. Backstage at The One Show, the former prime minister's daughter referred to a tennis player as a "golliwog".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7867472.stm

I wonder what tennis player she was talking about?

Still Incognitas


No, the word 'offense' and it's derivatives are being mis-used these days and it is used for anything that people do not agree with even if it doesn't offend you. It's become lazy thinking.

Incog, with a little digging, it's not as simple as her offering a prayer for a person (as I said, I wouldn't find that offensive, personally) but was actually reasonably active in pushing her beliefs onto others. Probably through a misguided belief that she was only trying to help and that it was acceptable to do so. However after at least one official warning (or any sort of warning) you'd expect a person to listen and back off a little.

Having someone knock on my door offering to talk about their beliefs is one thing, having a person having direct and often intimate access to my person and little or no privacy, that offer crosses into coercion, however subtle.

that's about where I come from too Robyn

Also worth noting that once a complaint has been made the proper process must be adhered to. So suspension in cases of misconduct seems a reasonable action to take. The investigation will then decide what happens - it may well exonerate her of any wrong doing. We shall see (or maybe not as the follow up to these stories rarely seems to be published).

And again, the details and facts of the case seem to be a little, erm, speculative...

Yeah...it's not the prayer that's offensive. That's usually just someone passing on nice thoughts in terms that make sense to them.

The issue here, though, is one of a nurse not recognising the (obvious!) boundaries of her professional duties. These boundaries are important in the patient-carer relationship. When people are sick, they might not want the people involved in the embarassing details of their care to be over-familiar. If she can't be trusted to do a simple thing like not push prayer cards on people...what else might she do that offends her patients?

The nurse also said: 'I only offered to pray for her because I was concerned about her welfare and wanted her to get better.’

Um, if she had kept up with research (meta-study research as well as individual research trials) she would find out that patients who are prayed for do not get better quicker than those who do not. Indeed, some research showed that if a patient knew they were being prayed for they took longer to recover.

Hence, from a profeesional nursing point of view praying is both a method of recovery that is ineffective at best and detrimental at worst.