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[TonyGosling]

Persecuted for praying: Nurse who faces the sack after offering to pray for sick patient

By David Wilkes and Neil Sears
Last updated at 10:36 PM on 01st February 2009

A nurse could be sacked and even struck off for offering to say a prayer for an elderly patient.

Caroline Petrie, a community nurse and devout Christian, has already been suspended for an alleged breach of her code of conduct on equality and diversity.

She now faces disciplinary action, even though the patient involved did not make a formal complaint.


Suspended: Caroline Petrie offered to pray to help a patient recover

The case has outraged the Christian community, which warns its members are becoming 'the most discriminated against people in society'.

They cited previous instances including that of Heathrow check-in worker Nadia Eweida, who in 2006 was banned from wearing a cross around her neck at work.

Last night Mrs Petrie, 45, insisted she was not trying to force her beliefs on others, but was simply offering a little spiritual help.

She said: 'I have trouble understanding how offering to pray for someone could be upsetting. I feel it's a nice thing to ask and a way to give hope that circumstances can change.'

She made the prayer offer to May Phippen, 79, in December, at the end of a home visit.

Mrs Phippen, a widow who lives with relatives, mentioned the offer in passing to another nurse the next day. Caroline denies forcing her faith on anyone and said she was only trying to help by politely offering to pray for a patient

Caroline denies forcing her faith on anyone and said she was only trying to help by politely offering to pray for a patient

The great-grandmother told the Mail last night: 'It didn't worry me, it just struck me as a strange thing for a nurse to do. She finished dressing my legs and before she left the last thing she asked was would you like me to say a prayer for you? I said "no thank you" and then she went.

'It was the first time I'd seen her. She was a nice lady, did the job properly and was quietly spoken. Personally I wouldn't want to see her sacked for something like that.

'I have Christian beliefs myself and maybe she meant well. But it could perhaps be upsetting for some other people if they have different beliefs or thought that she meant they looked in such a bad way that they needed praying for.'

Mrs Petrie claims she was confronted the following day, December 16, by a nursing sister who told her the patient had been 'taken aback' by the offer.

The next day the mother of two, of Weston-Super-Mare, north Somerset, received a message on her home phone from her co-ordinator telling her that disciplinary action would be taken. She was then suspended.

Yesterday Mrs Petrie said that she tried to ask every patient if they would like her to pray for them, except if it seemed they may be of a different faith.

'Many of them want me to pray for them. I can't believe that I've been suspended over this,' she said.

Her husband Stewart Petrie, 48, a telecom engineer said: 'It seems ridiculous to me that it has come to this. I hope commonsense will prevail.'

Mrs Petrie has been a committed Christian since the age of ten, when her mother died of breast cancer. She switched from the Church of England to the Baptist faith nine years ago.

She admits she received a previous warning about promoting her faith at work. Last October she offered to give a prayer card to an elderly male patient in Clevedon, Somerset. He accepted it but his carer raised concerns with the Primary Care Trust.

Alison Withers, Mrs Petrie's boss at the time, wrote to her at the end of November saying: 'As a nurse you are required to uphold the reputation of your profession.

'Your NMC (Nursing Midwifery Council) code states that "you must demonstrate a personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity" and "you must not use your professional status to promote causes that are not related to health".'

As a result Mrs Petrie, who qualified as a nurse in 1985 and has worked part-time for the North Somerset Authority since February 2008, was ordered to attend an equality course. Such courses can include learning to make a judgment on whether your words are likely to offend the person they are directed to.

Mrs Petrie had an internal disciplinary hearing last Wednesday. She awaits the outcome.

A North Somerset Primary Care Trust spokesman confirmed that the nurse has been suspended pending an investigation.
Crucifix

Mrs Petrie is a bank nurse, which means she is employed by the trust and drafted in when necessary, to be paid by the hour.

The spokesman added: 'She has been told we will not be using her in this capacity until the outcome of our investigation is known. We always take any concerns raised by our patients most seriously and conscientiously investigate any matter of this nature brought to our attention.'

Mrs Petrie has taken legal advice from the Christian Legal Centre. Paul Diamond, a leading religious rights barrister, has been instructed to handle the case.

Mr Diamond represented Miss Eweida and last year appeared for Relate counsellor Gary McFarlane, of Bristol, who was sacked for refusing to give sex counselling to homosexuals.

A source close to the current case told the Daily Mail: 'Caroline Petrie is being disciplined under equal opportunities and "diversity" policies - and there is a growing tendency to use such policies to single out for attack our own Judaeo-Christian customs and culture.

'Christians are now becoming the most discriminated-against group of people in our society. It's getting quite frightening and out of hand.'

The Reverend Prebendery John Andrews, spokesman for the diocese of Bath and Wells, which covers north Somerset, said: 'The simple offer of a prayer is perfectly in keeping with the healing ministry of the church, and for Mrs Petrie to be disciplined purely for that would be extremely regrettable.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1133423/Persecuted-praying-Nurse-faces-sack-offering-pray-sick-patient.html
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[TonyGosling]

The UK is at the cliff’s edge. A few warning voices are trying to be heard. But the warnings seem to be falling mainly on deaf ears. Yet the warnings must be made. Whether they can keep the UK from going over the edge is a moot point. But the moral responsibility of being a watchman remains.

Time to Put the UK Out of Its Misery
by Bill Muehlenberg - Tuesday, February 3, 2009
http://au.christiantoday.com/article/5286.htm

Historian Arnold Toynbee once said “Civilizations die from suicide, not murder”. I don’t think there is much debate about that. There might be some debate however as to which nation today best exemplifies this. A number of countries are clearly in the process of self-destruction. But a good case can be made for nominating the UK as the most obvious example of collective hari-kari.

Consider two recent episodes of national madness coming from the UK. They both illustrate a nation which is in big trouble, and provide good examples of when a nation abandons God and common sense, it quickly and inevitably heads down the gurgler.

The first concerns a nurse who has just been suspended for engaging in a horrific act. No, she did not murder 42 of her own patients. No, she did not bilk millions from a hospital. No, what she did was obviously far, far worse: she actually had the audacity to ask an elderly patient if she could pray for her. Yes you heard me right – despicable isn’t it?

One media account describes things this way: “Caroline Petrie, a committed Christian, has been accused by her employers of failing to demonstrate a ‘personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity’. She faces disciplinary action and could lose her job over the incident. Mrs Petrie, a married mother of two, says she has been left shocked and upset by the action taken against her. She insists she has never forced her own religious beliefs on anyone but politely inquired if the elderly patient wanted her to pray for her – either in the woman’s presence or after the nurse had left the patient’s home. ‘I simply couldn’t believe that I have been suspended over this. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. All I am trying to do is help my patients, many of whom want me to pray for them,’ she said. Mrs Petrie, 45, is a community nurse employed by North Somerset Primary Care Trust to carry out home visits to sick and elderly patients.”

Evidently the elderly woman did not wish to be prayed for, and the nurse let it go at that. But later the patient complained about the invitation to prayer. The nurse said, “My concern is for the person as a whole, not just their health”.

Actually, she might have phrased that a bit better. Prayer for health seems to be part of the healing process. But even if prayer has no connection to health and wellbeing, it is not exactly a horrific request. To ask someone to pray for them usually means asking God’s blessing and favour on them. She wasn’t asking the patient if she could lop off her head or violate her grandchildren.

And when the patient declined, that was the end of the matter. Yet in tolerant, progressive and God-free England, it seems offering to pray for someone is now considered to be a hate crime, with stiff penalties being handed out. I suppose soon enough all believers will be rounded up and interred in re-education camps, until they learn the error of their ways, and renounce their dangerous and harmful faith.

The UK has become adept at turning vices into virtues, and virtues into vices. It is legalising all sorts of activities and behaviours that until recently were considered taboo. And it is increasingly criminalising those beliefs and practices that until recently were considered to be the hallmark of civilised and caring societies.

But lest the reader remain unconvinced that the UK takes the cake in the let’s-commit-collective-suicide stakes, let me offer one more example, just as recent and just as grotesque as the other. A big cheese government green advisor has said that in order to fight global warming, we have to abort more babies.

No, you did not misread me. The Sunday Times covered the story this way: “Couples who have more than two children are being ‘irresponsible’ by creating an unbearable burden on the environment, the government’s green adviser has warned. Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government’s Sustainable Development Commission, says curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming. He says political leaders and green campaigners should stop dodging the issue of environmental harm caused by an expanding population.”

The story continues, “A report by the commission, to be published next month, will say that governments must reduce population growth through better family planning. ‘I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate,’ Porritt said. ‘I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible. It is the ghost at the table. We have all these big issues that everybody is looking at and then you don’t really hear anyone say the “p” word’.”

Porritt, who of interest has two children, says he will pressure environmental pressure groups to make population issues their main focus: “Many organisations think it is not part of their business. My mission with the Friends of the Earth and the Greenpeaces of this world is to say: ‘You are betraying the interests of your members by refusing to address population issues and you are doing it for the wrong reasons because you think it is too controversial.” The article continues, “Porritt, a former chairman of the Green party, says the government must improve family planning, even if it means shifting money from curing illness to increasing contraception and abortion.”

So there you have it: kill a baby and save the planet. If the UK is becoming a third-world nation in its morality, it might as well become one in terms of government policy. China of course already has in place its notorious one-child policy. Today the coercive utopians in the UK are demanding two children. But tomorrow it may well be one – or even less.

This is yet the umpteenth example of bureaucrats and social engineers proposing the most inhumane of practices, all in the name of humanity. Indeed, whenever you hear someone carping on about ‘humanity’ it is best to stand up and take notice.

The Marxists of course were experts in championing ‘humanity,’ all the while knocking off millions of mere humans. Those who most despise human beings are often the ones who go on the most about the need to save ‘humanity’.

These two cases are simply the latest examples of a nation which has lost its way big time. The elites and bureaucrats running the UK are hell-bent on dragging the nation down to the level of, say, North Korea. And they seem to be doing a pretty good job of it.

The late Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn once said that the reason for our troubles is our abandonment of our creator: “It is because we have forgotten God. That is why all this is happening to us.” He seems to have been on to something there. As the UK in particular and the West in general continue their march to secularism, they also seem to be heading into terminal decline and decay.

Sure, there are numerous factors which lead to the destruction of nations. But the erosion of faith and the exclusion of belief in the public arena certainly play leading roles. And Toynbee was not the only historian to point out these connections. Will Durant said similar things: “There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.”

As the West continues along the path of losing its collective marbles, those who seek to wave a red flag of warning will appear to be subversive and/or deranged. As C.S. Lewis once said, “When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind.” But such voices must continue.

The UK is at the cliff’s edge. A few warning voices are trying to be heard. But the warnings seem to be falling mainly on deaf ears. Yet the warnings must be made. Whether they can keep the UK from going over the edge is a moot point. But the moral responsibility of being a watchman remains.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4409168/Nurse-suspended-for-offering-to-pray-for-patients-recovery.html
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article5627634.ece




Christian Today

Article from Christian Today:
http://au.christiantoday.com/article/5286.htm
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