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

[autopope.livejournal.com]

She was visiting the patient to change wound dressings -- presumably for leg ulcers. This suggests the patient was immobile and therefore a captive audience for her god-bothering. Highly unprofessional, to say the least.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I think the nurse shouldn't have done it, and that it is a disciplinary matter.
I think that suspension without pay seems incredibly excessive for a first offence. Of course this nurse may have received endless warnings about this sort of thing.
I think I generally don't like it when people complain because *someone else* might be offended - it drives me up the wall that people do this so much at BiCon.
I think I prefer "Would you like me to pray for you?" to "I'll pray for you", but not by much. For some reason, "You'll be in my prayers" winds me up a lot less.

[feorag.livejournal.com]

It's at least her second offence.

Plus, the prayer studies have shown that patients do worse when they know someone is praying for her.

[cyberpunkgrrl.livejournal.com]

I was just reading that...

On one hand, at least she didn't force it on her, and actually asked first (which is more than some would do)... On the other hand, it is a little presumptious that someone would want to be prayed for, or even that they were the same religion as them.

I don't think it's worth her losing her job over, though!

[mooism.livejournal.com]

The patient is a Christian, so I see no problem with the nurse's conduct.

[cookwitch.livejournal.com]

Part of me thinks it is an overreaction on the patient's part. However, if you are a Christian and wish to pray for someone you do not have to tell them. The power of prayer is not dependent on being right there with the person. Surely you could just get on and do it?

I find the whole thing quite odd, to be honest. I read it yesterday and went "Eh?"

[redcountess]

The patient doesn't want the nurse to get the sack, but I do think there should be some sort of disciplinary hearing, especially if this is not the first time she's done this (as suggested in an earlier comment). If the nurse feels so strongly about her faith she should take orders (to be a nun) - there are plenty of orders that still nurse.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I agree - she shoudln't have done it and as the patient says in that article, an offer of prayer could be interpreted as the patient being in a very bad way. But suspension sounds most excessive for a first time.

The thing with 'I'll pray for you' is there's no polite way to disagree - "I'd really rather you didn't" doesn't go down well.

At least things have improved in the NHS - when I was born my mother was explicitly told that if I wasn't baptised I wouldn't live through the night. For years she wanted to take me back to the hospital and do "ner ner na ner ner" - but then my parents did eventually decide to name me after the guardian angel while hoping for the best...

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

What does it say that the patient themselves didn't see it that way (and in fact declined the offer)?

[andrewducker]

Oooh - can you give me more info on that?

The stuff I've seen shows a mild positive effect when they know they're being prayed for - but I can't find any of that either!

[andrewducker]

I don't like people objecting "in case someone else is offended".

I don't think it's appropriate _in general_. But if they got chatting, and the patient told her she was a Christian then it might have been a reasonable thing to offer.

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

[cookwitch.livejournal.com]

Go from offering to pray straight to being a nun? That's a mighty jump.

I think that offering to pray for someone isn't of itself offensive, just possibly open to misinterpretation. The thing is, you don't NEED to tell someone you will pray for them, you can just go home and do it, thus not risking anyone being offended. I find it strange that she felt the need to ask when she could just go and add them to her prayer list.

[cookwitch.livejournal.com]

Absolutely.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes - "Petrie said she had been reprimanded over her faith before, in October, when she gave a homemade prayer card to an elderly patient."

It probably warrants another disciplinary hearing and a written warning, but suspension without pay still seems over the top when the second offense is far less egregious than the first. OTOH as I say we may not know the whole story - if there's a string of occasions then eventually you do get to this stage.

[wildbadger.livejournal.com]

I agree, but also think it depends to some extent on the nature of the interaction. Offers of prayer can be either sincere expressions of goodwill, or quite unpleasant and manipulative.

Compulsory religion in schools concerns me far more, as the audience is equally captive.

[redcountess]

True, but I meant if she feels compelled to do god's work in her nursing.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

What I mean is: The nurse is Christian, and the patient is Christian, so Christian rules of appropriateness should apply, which I, as an atheist, am not qualified to judge.

[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.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/02/nurse-prayer-suspended refers to a previous similar incident: Petrie said she had been reprimanded over her faith before, in October, when she gave a homemade prayer card to an elderly patient. She said: "He was delighted with it, but his carer was not."

I think that suspension without pay still seems excessive. But can't she just pray to get her job back?

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

I don't think we have nearly enough information to come to judgement about this specific instance. All of the information about what happened comes from the nurse; the statement from the employer is carefully evasive about the specifics.

It would certainly seem like an over-reaction if the nurse's account is accurate and there's no previous. If she was more upfront about it than she's making out, and this was far from the first complaint, and she'd been warned about this formally ... then it would seem entirely appropriate.

We don't know any of that.

(Some reports say that she does have previous, but from years and years ago. Again, if she's not put a foot wrong between then and now: over-reaction. If she'd been causing trouble on this matter continually since then: entirely appropriate.)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

That's different, they're children - who gives a damn what they want so long as their voting parents get what they want?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Er, as if there was one Christian set of rules on these things! It clearly didn't meet the patient's standard of appropriateness, since we know they complained.

[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.

[djm4]

I don't think I know enough about it.

The facts as presented could cover everything from the nurse, as part of a conversation in which the patient said she was a Christian, asking whether in that case she'd like the nurse to pray for her, to the nurse forcefully and aggressively asking to be allowed to pray for her despite the patient obviously not wanting her to. In the former case I don't think any disciplinary action should be taken; suspension without pay seems harsh for the latter, but as a repeat offence I suppose it might be warranted.

And, of course, we've no idea whether the nurse is at all liked at her work. If she's known as 'that annoying religious nutter who creeps us all out', any excuse to get rid of her might seem reasonable to her employers.

I suspect the truth is somewhat in between. It seems odd to me to discipline a nurse for something of this nature that the patient themselves didn't complain about (I can see that it would be appropriate in some circumstances, but here the degree of actual offence - or lack of it - does seem significant).

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

(Just been reading more reports: blimey, there seems to be a range of accounts here. Was the previous 'in October' or 1985?! (October 1999?) Coming round to thinking employer's action was probably reasonable, but the diversity in the reports worries me that we're not getting a full picture. Though my strong suspicions are not to be too concerned that a great injustice has taken place.)