Praying nurses

[ciphergoth]

Nurse suspended without pay for offering to pray for a patient during a home visit - what do you think?

(Snowed in today, trying to work from home but it's not really a workplace atmosphere around here today :-)

Updated: the patient is described as a Christian in the article. One wonders if this means Christian as in really a Christian, or "Christian I suppose" which AFAICT is the majority religion of the UK. Updated: actually "have Christian beliefs myself" is more like the phrasing I'd expect from someone who takes it seriously.

Comments

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Without video footage of the event I don't think I could make a decision.

There are certain situations where the best guide to whether you were in the right is whether you were right. This is one of them: if the patient saw fit to complain, then you fucked up in a morally culpable way.

[andrewducker]

If she'd complained about it happening to her, then I'd definitely agree.

Deciding later on that a different patient might some day be offended is something I'm not convinced by.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

She declined on the spot...

[andrewducker]

Declining politely is fine though. If a nurse offered to pray for me in casual conversation then I'd politely decline - and I wouldn't report her later, because she hadn't offended me.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

Declining on the spot isn't offence. If someone offered me a cup of tea, I'd instantly decline because I hate tea, but that doesn't make me offended. In fact, I'd be pleased that they'd considered the fact I might want them to make me one - same logic applies here. Just because you don't want a prayer said for you doesn't imply that anyone who offers will offend you. Unless you're really touchy, I guess.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

In practice people mostly say "thank you" politely when people offer to pray for them, even if they don't welcome it at all. It's rare for someone to feel strongly enough to actually decline. This isn't true of tea.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

But that's not my point. The point is that even if you do feel strongly enough to actually decline, surely you can appreciate that it's a kind gesture even if it doesn't fall into your set of beliefs?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

OK, so we're no longer talking about how the patient did actually feel about it, we're now talking about how they should have felt about it...

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

Are we? Gosh.

Pretty sure that isn't what I said, but I'll bow out now, since it obviously is. :)

[henry_the_cow]

Surely the point is that we don't actually know what "it" was. We don't know who has decided to make this into a story, to write it up and attract the interest of the media. We don't know how the press report compares to what actually happened. We don't know if, when the patient said she thought that others might be offended, she was actually offended herself but too shy to say so, or whether she felt she ought to say something on behalf of other people who weren't actually offended, or some other interpretation. There are all sorts of things we don't know about this case.

We can, of course, talk about the general case. We might prefer, for example, our carers to show some individuality, or we might prefer them to keep themselves to themselves. On the particular question of whether we should be offended when someone offers to pray for us. On the rare occasions this happens, I feel slightly uncomfortable, but I generally take it as an indication that the person is wishing me well in their own way. If they tried to insist that prayer would heal me, then I might start to disagree with them (but more likely I would just edge away).

[cookwitch.livejournal.com]

Unless, of course, the patient is a curmudgeonly old moo who complains about everything. Not that there are any people like that at all.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

That's no exception. If they complain, you got it wrong. If they're the sort of person who complains about everything, you should know better than to offer to pray for them.

[cookwitch.livejournal.com]

Not so.

Would you like me to pray for you?
No, thank you dear.
Fair enough.

I cannot see what is so awful about that, I really can't. We're turning into a nation of "It might OFFEND someone! Aaiiee!" people.

It's not like she held her down and tried to exorcise her.

Plus just because someone complains, does not always mean that YOU have got it wrong.

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

I also think that people get offended too easily. I think CHristians who get offended by Dawkins are being a bit silly.

But in this case there was a power relationship between the nurse and the elderly patient. This is what makes it innapropriate, I think.

[cillygirl.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

To me it is the power relationship that makes it not ok. Particularly with an elderly patient, but any patient can be at a disadvantage.

In that situation I can see me being silent or distracted, and later feeling that I wish I had disagreed. I might actually get quite freaked out about being in the power of religious people who might disapprove of me, if I was feeling particularly vulnerable.

[djm4]

Would you feel the same way about someone who complained because the nurse hadn't offered to pray for them? (Note - I'm not saying this is exactly equivalent, just trying to gauge boundaries.)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

No, not at all - if you do it by the book and they complain, you can say, I did it by the book. If you do exactly what the book forbids, you'd better be right about them welcoming it.

[djm4]

Ah yes, that makes sense, thanks.

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

If they complain, you got it wrong.

Does that apply to anything? When I was working in a pub I got a fair few complaints from awful people without doing anything wrong.

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

Also, generally I think people who complain are wankers. I'd put up with all kinds of rudeness from restaurant staff, for instance, rather than complaining and potentially costing someone their job.

I do think that it's a bit different for a nurse who's taking care of people, but the offense seems very small.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Does that apply to anything? Absolutely not, it applies to doing what is expressly forbidden by the code of your job. If you chance it and get it right, fair enough, but if you chance it and get it wrong there's really no defence that you thought they wouldn't mind - you have to be right to be in the right.

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

Legally, you don't have a leg to stand on if you do something that's expressly forbidden by the code of your job. But there are times when the code could surely be unfair, and it might be morally ok to do something that's forbidden. I'd usually support a casual worker in a low paid job who was rude back to a customer, for instance, since I think that the obligation to be polite at all times is unfair.

In this case, though, I think it probably is right that telling patients you're praying for them is forbidden.

[djm4]

In this case, though, I think it probably is right that telling patients you're praying for them is forbidden.

In this case, though, that wasn't what the nurse was reported as doing (although I realise that she may have been doing that in other cases). I know that looks nitpicky, but to me telling a patient that you're praying for them is in a very different category from asking whether they'd like you to pray for them. On the grounds of non-consensuality, if nothing else. (I realise - from a recent Deadjournal post on the subject, if nothing else - that people's mileage on this may vary.)

I'm not saying that everyone should accept one and not the other; just that if they're wrong, I feel they're wrong for different (sometimes overlapping) reasons. For the record, I feel that telling someone you're praying for them without asking if they'd like you to is generally wrong, and should be forbidden in a carer/patient relationship, and asking if they'd like you to pray for them (but being quite happy to be told 'no') generally isn't wrong, and shouldn't be forbidden. But I accept that it's made more awkward by social pressures not to say 'no' to people offering you help.