UK private hospital group bans staff from wearing pro-Palestine pins
HCA Healthcare UK, which runs some of the country's most prestigious private hospitals, has instructed its senior executives to 'ensure that our dress code policy is applied' across the company's sites.
It came after a Jewish patient said she was left 'extremely distressed' after seeing two of the three reception staff at the Devonshire Diagnostic Centre, part of HCA Healthcare's Harley Street Clinic, wearing large badges decorated with the Palestinian flag.
It later emerged that a rucksack decorated with a visible Palestine flag badge, thought to belong to a member of the Harley Street Clinic's pharmacy staff, had also been left in full view of patients.
The patient interpreted the badges not only as a statement of support for Palestinians during the conflict in Gaza, but as a condemnation of Israel's actions in the region.
'Doesn't feel safe to be overtly Jewish'
She told The Telegraph: 'It is an utterly inappropriate use of a healthcare setting to push a specific and highly divisive political agenda. It creates an environment in which it does not feel safe to be overtly Jewish, let alone associated with Israel in any way.
'It felt like a punch to the guts to be honest. They weren't being worn in a private setting in a personal capacity, they were being worn in a work setting where people like me are already feeling vulnerable because of their condition.
'I was very relieved I wasn't wearing any overtly Jewish symbols, such as the Star of David, or have an obviously Jewish name because I was left feeling that anything could have happened if they had noticed that.'
The patients notified the legal campaign group UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), who then complained to HCA Healthcare UK's president and chief executive officer John Reay about the incident.
UKLFI warned that wearing the badges in a public setting could 'indicate support for Hamas' actions on 7 October 2023,' when more than 1,200 people were murdered and 250 people were taken hostage.
The group also warned HCA Healthcare, whose hospitals include The Wellington, The Portland and The Lister, that such badges could be interpreted as harassing Jewish and Israeli customers and are therefore in breach of the Equality Act.
Caroline Turner, the director of UKLFI, told HCA Healthcare: 'It is inevitable that your Jewish or Israeli patients, or indeed other visitors, will be intimidated by seeing a Palestine badge, apparently authorised by HCA, and will consider it a hostile act towards themselves.
'This is the flag that appears in the 'hate marches' that have occurred on most Saturdays since 7 October 2023. Furthermore, patients visiting your hospital are particularly vulnerable, and are likely to be distressed by seeing these political images that conjure up such hatred towards themselves and their people.'
The complaint follows a similar incident at HCA Harborne Hospital in Birmingham in February this year.
Mr Reay replied to UKLFI, stating: 'I will remind all our senior executives to ensure that our dress code policy is applied to all our sites.'
HCA Healthcare told The Telegraph it had a 'very clear uniform policy that prohibits the wearing of any badges on uniforms that are not issued by the hospital' and that this rule applies across all of its hospitals.'
A spokesperson said: 'Our uniform policy is clear that only insignia, badges, pins and stickers issued by HCA UK should be worn while working.'
UKLFI said: 'We are pleased that HCA will remind staff at all sites not to wear these badges. They can make Jewish patients very distressed at a time when they are feeling at their most vulnerable, in a clinic or hospital.'
Earlier this year, staff at some of London's biggest NHS hospitals were banned from wearing pro-Palestine symbols after complaints they were 'upsetting and intimidating' vulnerable patients.
Barts Health NHS Trust introduced the ban across its five hospitals: St Bart's, Mile End, Newham, Royal London and Whipps Cross, after UKLFI raised the case of a young Jewish woman who attended Whipps Cross for a caesarean and encountered three members of staff wearing pro-Palestine badges in a 24-hour period.
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