Cultural Acid Test: Islam and Hygiene, Rights and Responsibilities

I think the War on Terror will be a useful acid test for both Islamic and western cultures. I've written before about the challenges facing Islam ("Islam, Assault, Culture, and a Houston Area Crisis Hotline" (February 1, 2008), for example).

Contemporary western culture is having some of its basic assumptions tested, too.

For at least three decades, at least in America, western culture has been extremely concerned about individual rights. We're not to discriminate against people: and our legislators and regulators gave us a lavish pile of overlapping rules to make sure that what they think is discrimination doesn't happen.

It looks like a not-altogether-unreasonable fear of discrimination has seeped into Britain's law, too.

On both sides of the Atlantic, the system has worked, more or less. Partly, I think, because all but the most radical 'rights' enthusiasts were careful about what 'rights' they demanded.

That seems to be changing.

Europe and America now have sizable populations of Muslims, whose culture developed independently of the Magna Carta and germ theory. Basic western assumptions about the balance of individual rights and social responsibilities are being tested.

Over in United Kingdom, hospitals and medical facilities, hundreds of peope have died from MRSA and Clostridium difficile infections. So, the Department of Health said that all doctors should be "bare below the elbow". There was no prurient interest involved.

As a professor of microbiology at Imperial College London, Dr Mark Enright, said: "To wash your hands properly, and reduce the risks of MRSA and C.difficile, you have to be able to wash the whole area around the wrist.

Common sense? Apparently not.

• Some Birmingham University students would rather to quit their studies than expose their arms
• A Sheffield University medic refused to "scrub:" it would have left her forearms exposed
• Several Leicester University students wouldn't roll their sleeves up to the elbow for "appropriate hand washing"

You guessed it: the no-roll medical types were all Muslim.

These people aren't isolated crackpots.

The Islamic Medical Association (IMA) insisted that covering all the body in public, except the face and hands, was a basic tenet of Islam. Here's how the IMA put it: "No practicing Muslim woman - doctor, medical student, nurse or patient - should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow."

The IMA isn't pro-germ, though. Its spokesman, Dr Majid Katme, say that sterile disposable gloves that run up the arm would be better than bare skin. Think throw-away evening gloves. Dr. Katme may have a point, though.

This to-scrub or not-to-scrub question is quite serious in the United Kingdom.

On the one hand, there are people whose religious beliefs (apparently) forbid them from following contemporary hygiene rules. On the other hand, there are people who believe that it's time to stop killing patients with avoidable infections.

Conservative MEP (Member of European Parliament, I think), former hospital consultant and infidel, Dr Charles Tannock, has a possible solution: "Perhaps these women should not be choosing medicine as a career if they feel unable to abide by the guidelines that everyone else has to follow."

That makes sense to me. 'If you can't accept the rules, don't join the club.' I know of someone who is taking medical training, but will probably move to another state to work. If he stays where he is, he'd be required to perform executions: which goes against his beliefs.

It's not that easy, of course. The British legal system. Like America's and many if not most western countries', has a satchel-full of anti-discrimination laws.

Since the modest medics are invoking religious belief, the odds are that they'll sue, if hospitals or universities insist on their washing before medical procedures.

My guess is that Dr. Katme's disposable evening gloves will be used, after a few hundred more people die in British hospitals. And, that if British courts are as badly fouled up as America's, several law firms will make obscene profits by pushing 'discrimination' lawsuits.

Finally, this isn't a Muslim/non-Muslim issue. There are at least four groups involved:

• Traditional Muslims
• Contemporary Muslims
• Traditional westerners
• Modern westerners

In my view, traditional Muslim and traditional western culture have more in common with each other than either has with modern western culture. And, contemporary-culture Muslims should, I think, take a hard look at how modern western culture has treated traditional western culture, before they decide embrace the modern ethic.

My hope is that people on all sides of the cultural divide take a long, hard look at which of their beliefs are indispensable, and how they can accommodate people whose beliefs are not exactly the same as theirs.

Related posts, on Islam, Christianity, Religion, Culture and the War on Terror.

Special Hospital Bed Service for Brit Muslims

First the burqa, now the bed: what's next?!

Last year, Britain's National Health Service (NHS) decided that British hospitals had to give Muslim patients Burqa-style gowns, if the patients didn't want medical staff to see their faces.

This year, the Mid-Yorkshire NHS Trust is seeing how much more British hospital staffs can take. The executive-types have decided that the beds of Muslim patients have to be turned to face Mecca.

Five times a day.

That's just the start of the fun. Fresh bathing water is part of a complicated process that the Muslims apparently require. The idea is to give Muslim patients "a more comfortable stay in hospital." In a spasm of common sense, the directive says that medical personnel should stop dealing with illness and human suffering to play musical beds "whenever possible."

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I understand how important it is to accommodate the beliefs and customs of patients. I'm Catholic, and have spent my share of time in hospitals: including quite a bit of 2006. I found comfort in objects and sacraments related to my faith. The room I was in had a crucifix over the door, and the hospital let someone come regularly with a consecrated Host. During visiting hours, of course. It was a Catholic hospital, which explains the crucifix.

There's a lot more to being a Catholic than that, and rules that apply when I'm not plugged into several machines. However, the Church recognizes that sometimes it's not practical - or possible - to practice every pious custom. I can be Catholic without insisting that a hospital pick up

• Me
• A wheelchair
• An IV feed
• A blood recycler

- and carry the whole kit and kaboodle to Mass once a week.

Once a day, if I got really scrupulous.

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Back to the special requirements of British Muslims, as imagined by the National Health Service.

Religious practices are important to many people, and should be accommodated, withing reason. "Within reason" is a critical phrase here. The news articles covering this alleged need of Muslim patients didn't say what the patient-staff ratio is in British hospitals, but my guess is that it isn't even close to 1-to-1.

Hospital beds, the ones I'm familiar with, are big, bulky, and heavy. One person can turn them, but it takes two to do the job in a reasonable time.

I think that, in the long run, it would be easier to

• Jack up those British hospitals
• Slip turntables under them
• Align the beds of devout Muslims so that they all point in one direction throughout the hospital
• Turn the whole building as Islam dictates

My guess is that, even if the NHS did this, it still wouldn't be good enough.

At least, not for permanently-affronted minority rights outfits.

If Muslims have such remarkably labor-intensive needs when they're hospitalized, maybe Britain needs to build special hospitals, specifically designed for their needs. But that would be segregation, and that's on the civil rights' black list, too. Or, rather, the 'unacceptable' list.

Some Islamic nations, organizations, and individuals have a well-established track record of being easily offended by everything from cartoons to trousers and teddy bears.

But, the Incredible Case of the Rotating Beds doesn't seem to have its roots among British Muslims, at least not directly. the Daily Express reports that "The changes have been instigated by Dewsbury and District Hospital’s chief matron, Catherine Briggs...." Ms. Briggs had talked with quite a few people and groups to find to find out "what staff could do to further improve Muslim patients' experience of the NHS." These included

• Local Asian GPs
• Ethnic minority patients groups
• Muslim chaplain Ilyas Dalal

Consulting people to find out what's wanted: that's a good idea. Taking what I suspect is an ideal of Islamic behavior under perfect conditions, and dictating that real people in a real hospital try carrying it out is an idea that comes from Ms. Briggs. Someone who probably isn't a Muslim.

Tolerance and accommodation of different religious beliefs and practices is important. But, I don't think that the Briggs Whirlybed Project is going to improve the status of Islam and Muslims in Britain.