An atheist group has backed a decision by a healthcare trust to suspend a nurse who said she would pray for an elderly patient.
Caroline Petrie, a Christian mother of two from Weston-super-Mare, was suspended by North Somerset Primary Care Trust in December.
The 45-year-old is now awaiting the outcome of a disciplinary hearing.
In a statement the National Secular Society (NSS) said it was inappropriate for health workers to “evangelise”.
Keith Porteous-Wood, the executive director of NSS said: “Medical practitioners are, quite rightly, not to be permitted to offer religious services to patients.”
Prayer card
He added: “Their job is to provide medical services, not use their workplace as an opportunity to ‘spread the word’, their word and one which may well not be shared by their patients.”
Mrs Petrie was suspended after visiting an elderly woman in Winscombe, North Somerset, in December.
The woman is thought to have told the trust about incident and Mrs Petrie was challenged.
She said: “I’m not angry, and I understand if people don’t believe in the way that I do.
“But I am upset because I enjoy this job and it (prayer) is a valuable part of the care I give.
“I became a Christian 10 years ago after my mother died. My faith got stronger and I realised God was doing amazing things in my life.”
She also admitted she had been asked to go on a diversity and equality course after giving a prayer card to an elderly patient in October 2008.
In a statement the trust said: “Caroline Petrie is a bank nurse. We have had two separate complaints from a carer and a patient about her actions.
“She has therefore been told we will not be using her until the outcome of our investigation is known.”
Interestingly, this Sunday we’ll be looking at Jesus’ encounter with the man suffering from a skin disease in Matthew Ch8.
Jesus was going about his business, travelling along a road when he encounters a man with a skin disease – Jesus response is to heal him and instruct him to go to the priest to be declared ‘clean’.
In doing this Jesus broke the accepted religious and social rules of His day.
One of the challenges I’ll be offering is how we can respond to the needy/sick/marginalised/isolated that we meet as we go about our daily lives. Much of the time we can do very little – except offer to pray with people.
This nurse did just that and lost her job!
It raises the question of how far we go in expressing our faith.
Do we risk our jobs just to pray with someone?
Do we work within the ‘limits’ of our job and go no further? (e.g. the nurse can do ‘nursey’ things but not pray?)
What if the other person doesn’t want our prayers, do we do it anyway while they are in our presence?
If you read this before Sunday 8th, read through Matthew Ch8 and reflect on this Nurses experience..
Just found this video of the nurse explaining her actions:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7864635.stm
It seems that she DID NOT pray with the patient who complained, only offered to pray with them.
Ekklesia are reporting the the nurse has been reinstated:
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/8596
The press release concludes with the following comments:
It’s a soul-less, achingly procedural world we live in. If only there were a way to stop it!
I do agree, Ashley, but at the same time I also think that we have to consider not just the nurse’s “right” to share her faith, but the fact that anyone who’s given the right to go into a person’s home and have access to their person at a time of illness should be extremely sensitive to the vulnerability of the person. Patients are not a captive audience and if this woman has been warned that her behaviour may breache guidelines for good conduct (presumably designed to protect people from religious exploitation) what’s the point she’s trying to make? Is this kind of “zeal” not rather disturbing? Would she think of visiting the patient in her own time – as a friend – and spending time with her? That might be a context in which to share her faith and pray.