Creeping Sharia in Health Care

Islamic supremacy is arriving in medical settings using stealth means, or what is often referred to as creeping sharia. Common themes include Muslim health care workers refusing to uphold infection control protocols, Muslim medical students refusing to study topics they deem forbidden according to Islamic law, Muslim visitors in hospitals ignoring hygiene guidelines to protect patients, and hospitals bending over backwards (or is it forwards?) to accommodate Muslim demands above and beyond anything done for members of any other religious or demographic group. Also covered are outright acts of violence perpetrated by Muslim men who attack hospital personnel. Islamic supremacy + dhimmitude = the end of civilized societies. Before I begin the (by no means exhaustive) list of how this equation is playing out in health care settings throughout the West, I’d like to share a personal story.

Shortly after the 9/11 Islamic terror attacks I had occasion to speak with a Muslim doctor who lived down the street from me. At that point in time I was completely ignorant about Islam and was, in fact, still a leftist (though wouldn’t be for much longer). The doctor, a meticulously groomed, soft-spoken, modern-appearing man made it clear that, among other things, he believed that Muslim females become “mature” when they turned nine and therefore can be married at that age. I ignored the alarm bell that went off in my head when he made that statement. Of course I’ve long since realized that this highly educated doctor who worked at a prestigious hospital had sanctioned, at the very least, child rape (in keeping with the teachings of his prophet, the king of all pedophiles, Mohammed). And therein lies the rub with Muslim doctors, as with all Muslims. If they are good Muslims and follow the teachings of the Quran, their values will necessarily be in direct conflict with our own. So with that in mind, let me begin our tour through Islamic supremacy in medical settings right here in the United States. An Islamic medical association operating in this country was identified by the Muslim Brotherhood as one among several “organizations of our friends” -- friends that could help the MB advance their goal of destroying America from within. Part of the association’s oath includes: “We serve no other God besides [Allah] and regard idolatry as an abominable injustice.” Islamic supremacy also asserts itself through lawfare as when a Muslim medical student who was dismissed due to poor academic performance sued the medical school on grounds of discrimination. Another case involved a Muslim health care worker who was fired because she refused to get a flu vaccine (required in hospital settings to protect patients) claiming the vaccine violated her Islamic faith because it contained a pork by product and that the entire affair violated her civil rights. In addition to lawfare there are many other ways Muslims push for special accommodations such as Muslim doctors and advocacy organizations calling on health care personnel to be more knowledgeable about Muslim traditions so they can better meet the needs of their Muslim patients. And so hospitals across the country are implementing an array of services for Muslim patients, including halal meals, alternatives to medications that contain alcohol and/or pork derivatives, gowns for women designed to protect their modesty, early morning and late night appointments during the month of Ramadan, hiring more Muslim chaplains, handing out Qurans to the parents of Muslim children after they’re born, providing prayer rugs, hosting Iftar events, and setting up prayers rooms exclusively for Muslims who often find existing multi-faith prayers rooms offensive and/or inconvenient. One town in Illinois proposed a “Muslim-centric” medical facility replete with many of the features noted above as well as Arabic-speaking staff, private rooms to ensure a Muslim standard of modesty, and space for ritual foot baths. The state rejected the plan but it was resubmitted without any references to sharia law. There has also been a proliferation of medical outreach programs for the Muslim community along with “sensitivity training” for medical staff who are expected to become so well versed in the array of Muslim patients’ needs that they can discern differences between the needs of a Muslim from Pakistan compared to a Muslim from Saudi Arabia. The Muslim-as-victim meme rears its head as well, such as the idea that Muslims “don’t have access” to healthcare, as was recently asserted by the vice president of cultural competence at a medical center in Brooklyn, NY. And when Muslims do access health care, special demands may be made as when a Muslima in New Jersey went to an emergency room complaining of chest pain and insisted on a female (corrected) technician after she was told she’d need an electrocardiogram. No male technician was available and she was informed of her options. She decided to sit and wait. After several hours her husband requested she be transferred to a different hospital. The couple then sued, claiming the Patient’s Bill of Rights entitled the Muslima to her demands. The issue of Muslima patients demanding same-sex health care professionals in emergency situations is one I expect to escalate, as is happening in Europe. But first, let’s take a quick detour to Canada where medical professionals banned virginity tests and the issuance of “chastity certificates” (popular in the Muslim culture) after the discovery of four dead Afghan women who were victims of “honor killings.” Elsewhere in Canada on a maternity ward where shared rooms arranged four beds with privacy curtains in between, a Muslim couple received greater levels of privacy than were afforded to others when their demands ejected at least one non-Muslim couple out of the ward and into a much more costly private room that the couple had to pay for. In Europe the situation is even more dire. And pervasive. In the UK, an 87-year-old Alzheimer’s patient was forced to wait for care after she fell because the Muslim charge nurse withheld assistance until he finished his prayers. This delay in care lasted five to ten minutes. The patient died shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, in at least one British hospital, staff were turning the beds of Muslim patients up to five times a day so patients could face Mecca while they pray. Then staff turned them back when the patients were finished. Staff were also expected to provide Muslim patients with running water so they can wash their feet before prayer. And then there is the issue of traditional Muslim attire, much of which doesn’t meet standards for infection control. The National Health Service requires staff providing direct care to patients to be in short sleeves to reduce the risk of transmitting increasingly deadly pathogens from one patient to another. Since many Muslim women consider it immodest to expose their forearms, some have refused to do so for proper hand-washing or scrubbing in prior to surgery. So the NHS developed disposable sleeves for Muslim health care workers who have direct patient contact. Naturally the tale above would not be complete without the Muslim-claiming-discrimination story as when a British radiographer who was faced with having to choose between losing her job or complying with the dress code, chose Islam over her job, then complained about having to make the choice. Meanwhile, the Islamic Medical Association in the UK upheld the Islamic tenet that Muslim women out in public must be covered, stating: “No practicing Muslim woman -- doctor, medical student, nurse, or patient -- should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow.” But it doesn’t stop there. (It never stops when it comes to Islamic supremacism.) Some Muslimas working in hospitals in the UK also want sterile hijabs to wear in the operating room and a private place to scrub in so their modesty can be protected. Some Muslim health care workers also refuse to use alcohol-based hand sanitizer because they claim it is forbidden according to Islamic law. And what of British Muslims studying to work in health care? Well, some have refused to attend classes or learn about anything that conflicts with the teachings of the Quran, such as material on evolution and health issues related sexual promiscuity and/or alcohol consumption. The commitment to avoid all things alcohol-related also impacts patient safety when Muslim visitors to hospitals refuse to use anti-bacterial gel before entering patient wards, ignoring signs posted throughout British hospitals asking visitors to use the gel in order to reduce the spread of infection. (Of note, there is nothing in Islamic law that would suggest Muslims cannot use alcohol-based sanitary gels and it appears that some Muslims are using this as a point of leverage to assert supremacy. See here, here, and here.) The final exhibit of the UK tour is a Muslim dentist who insisted his female patients wear hijabs, keeping a stash of head scarves in his office to give them. He abandoned at least two patients in acute pain who refused to don the hijab and on at least one occasion provided lesser quality care to a patient’s son when the mother agreed to wear the hijab but apparently didn’t answer a question about her son’s prayer habits in a way that pleased the dentist. Of note, the dentist’s younger brother is an Islamic extremist who stated that the 9/11 terror attack served “the pleasure of Allah.” Throughout Europe it has also become increasingly common for Muslim men to physically attack male doctors. In some cases, women are denied urgently needed medical care because their spouses are adamant that they be attended to by a female, or not be attended to at all. In France, a newborn’s father called the midwife a “rapist” then broke into the locked delivery room after seeing a nurse remove his wife’s burqa so she could give birth, hit the nurse in the face, and demanded she put the burqa back on his wife. In another case a Muslim male physically attacked a gynecologist who stepped in to assist with his wife’s complicated delivery. A few months prior to that, another doctor was attacked by a knife-wielding Islamist. In Belgium, when a Muslim woman needed an emergency c-section, her husband blocked the door to the operating room because the anesthesiologist was a male. After being told no female anesthesiologists were available a two-hour stand-off ensued after which time an imam was called upon who allowed the doctor to administer an epidural through a tiny opening in the woman’s burqa. A female nurse performed the surgery while the anesthesiologist remained outside the room shouting instructions to another nurse who was monitoring the anesthesia. An organization of anesthesiologists stated there have been other such incidents involving Muslim patients and their families. In Sweden, it’s more of the same. When a male doctor answered an urgent call to assist with a mother who was bleeding heavily after giving birth, the woman’s husband screamed at him to leave the room immediately. When the doctor refused, the husband and the brother-in-law physically attacked him. In addition to Muslim males becoming enraged if a male health care provider attends to their wife, there other things that may set them off. (Like just about everything.) And so a Turkish Muslim went on a violent rampage in a Catholic hospital in Germany because there were too many crosses on the walls. Barbarism meets the West. (And I haven’t even touched upon the abject madness that has unfolded in hospitals across Europe as invaders invade en masse, here, here, and here.) As the Muslim population in a society increases, expressions of Islamic supremacy become more and more aggressive. How it manifests in health care settings is just one of many ways in which the West is slowly and steadily being taken down by those who embrace an ideology that mandates nothing less than world domination. Hat tips: Atlas Shrugs, Jihad Watch, Islam in Europe, Fox News, NY Times, Washington Post, Fox News, Boston Herald, Front Page Magazine, Discover the Networks, BBC, Daily Mail, Metro UK, Telegraph, The Guardian, Nursing Times, Modern Health Care, Middle East Forum, Islam in Europe, Islamist Watch, The Whig, The Age, Religion News, Europe1, Lancet, Society for Human Resource Management, Wikipedia, and Daniel Pipes whose 2007 comprehensive overview of the subject matter provided a wealth of material