Sunday, April 08, 2012

Doctor in Britain sacked over emailed prayer

A Christian doctor in Britain, who was disciplined and eventually fired for emailing a prayer to colleagues in a bid to raise their spirits is suing the hospital that sacked him.

Dr David Drew, 64, said that he was made to feel like a, “religious maniac” after sending out a prayer by St Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, to motivate his department, the Daily Telegraph reports.  

He told an employment tribunal that he was subsequently disciplined and ordered to refrain from using religious references in professional communication.

When he sought clarification from executives, he was told to accept the recommendation without questioning or to resign, he claimed. 

The report into his behaviour even chastised him for sending a text message to a colleague, Rob Hodgkiss, reading, “Have a peaceful Christmas.” 

"While DD may regard such messages as benign RH perceived them as aggressive and unwelcome intrusions into his private time,” the report from hospital chiefs to Dr Drew said.  

Dr Drew claimed Mr Hodgkiss had simply replied, saying “likewise.”

He said, “I believe this trivial example demonstrates that anything can become a matter of offence."

The doctor said problems began when he voiced concerns about practices at Walsall Manor Hospital, Birmingham, in 2008.  

He said there were two occasions in which children had been sexually assaulted on the ward and one in which a child had died after a consultant let him go home.

But he claimed that when he complained, he was promptly stripped of his role as clinical director. A subsequent investigation was carried out into Dr Drew's conduct after he complained about the behaviour of a, “very rude nurse,” he said.  

And he was finally dismissed after he queried the order not to use religious language in professional communications, “verbal or written.”

"The allegation that I have forced my religion onto other people, that I am some kind of religious maniac, was made worse by the fact that they told me there was no need to understand what this is all about,” he told the Birmingham tribunal.  

"If the trust wanted me to behave in a different way they should give me some explanation. Little did I know that this email would cause me so much difficulty and ultimately result in my dismissal."

Dr Drew, a father of four who lives with his wife Janet, 61, in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, said he was pushed to accept that he had behaved inappropriately and was even offered a, “financial inducement” to go quietly.

He was first excluded in April 2009, after sending the prayer, and was eventually dismissed three days before Christmas in 2010. He lost an appeal last April.

Ian McKivett, Dr Drew's representative from the British Medical Association, told the tribunal that his client had repeatedly asked the Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust for examples of alleged inappropriate religious references but that they could only point to the prayer.  

He said, "There was a suggestion that he was being almost picky and pedantic by questioning the trust."

Dr Drew qualified as a doctor at Bristol University in 1972, training as a paediatrician at Birmingham Children's Hospital before travelling to Indo-China to set up medical services in refugee camps in Northern Thailand with an American aid organisation.  

He later established a university paediatric department in Jos, Nigeria, before transferring to Walsall Manor Hospital in 1993.