Over 100,000 people have signed a petition to save a doctor’s job after he was suspended for asking a Muslim mother to remove the veil on her niqab.
The mother went to the Royal Stoke University Hospital in Derby, United Kingdom, with her young daughter and told Dr. Keith Wolverson about her daughter’s condition, the Daily Mail reported.
Wolverson asked her if she could remove the veil because he had a hard time hearing her voice through the material.
“I asked a lady to remove her face veil for adequate communication, in the same way I’d ask a motorcyclist to remove a crash helmet,” he said, Independent reported.
The 52-year-old doctor said that he needed to be able to hear her so he could ascertain what condition he had to treat.
“It’s not been a great time, I wanted to get this into the public arena. It was so absurd,” he said. “The woman had a full face veil on, which I asked her to remove for clarity of communication,” the Daily Mail reported.
Wolverson said that the mother agreed and he said he didn’t see any sign or reason to believe that she was upset about the request.
‘There was no sign from her that she was upset or upset with me for asking,” he said.
According to Wolverson, it wasn’t the mother that had a problem with his request, it was her husband.
“She did so willingly, later on, her husband attended the treatment center and made a formal complaint,” Wolverson said.
He further clarified his intentions.
“I’m not racist, this has nothing to do with race, religion, or skin colors.”
The doctor claimed that when he has assisted Muslim patients in the past they had no problem removing the veil and even did so without needing to be asked.
“I’ve treated women in the past who have worn similar veils but on those occasions, I’ve never had to ask them to remove it, they just did,” he said.
In my experience, patients always take off their face covering during consultations. It is sad that a fellow GP, Dr Keith Wolverson, is being investigated for such a basic request.
Doctor who faces inquiry for asking a Muslim to lift her veil https://t.co/3irP4MU1XR #nhs #gp
— Dr Nora (@drnorasclinic) May 19, 2019
Ramadhan Foundation spokesman Mohammed Shafiq said that the doctor of 23 years had caused offense for making the request, and suggested that the doctor could have asked for female staff to deal with the woman, the Daily Mail reported.
“I’ve seen the suggest [sic] that I could’ve asked a female GP to carry out the treatment for the woman’s daughter but there was no female GP in the center,” Wolverson told the outlet.
Wolverson said that he had never been sanctioned before and now he could be struck off the register of doctors permanently.
He added that he hasn’t been working in medicine ever since the husband filed a complaint to the General Medicine Council (GMC) in June 2018.
“I feel I’ve been left with no alternative but to look at doing something else,” Metro reported.
The GMC is now investigating the incident for the alleged discrimination.
The complaint against Wolverson said that the mother didn’t want to remove the veil for religious reasons and that he would not continue the consultation until she removed it, Daily Mail reported.
It also said that she felt victimized and left the hospital crying for being racially discriminated against, accusing the doctor of being rude and giving a dirty look.
Patient Concern spokeswoman Joyce Robins told the Mail it would be “criminal” if a doctor ever got fired for an incident like this. Although doctors need to be sensitive to the religious beliefs of their patients, they need to put safety before everything else, she said.
Dr Keith Wolverson was in a consultation room at Royal Stoke University Hospital when the incident happened. https://t.co/M9GfLVrJnJ
— StokeonTrentLive (@Sotlive) May 27, 2019
