THE DAILY BLADE: Hospital Tells Doctor: Ditch The Hijab
When Dr. Hena Zaki of Plano,TX, interviewed for a job at suburban Dallas medical clinic CareNow, she was told that the facility’s no-hat policy included the hijab that covered her head, shoulders and most of her torso. She is demanding an apology and a change in CareNow's policy, reports The Associated Press:
CareNow President Tim Miller says he sees nothing wrong with the policy and feels no need to apologize. In a statement, his company says it does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion or national origin in employment decisions.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations calls CareNow's policy "a blatant violation" of federal law.
CAIR’s position is a blatant violation of good hygienic practice in a medical setting - not that the group, which has ties to terrorist organization Hamas (fifth item) – much cares. Instead of banning the hijab under its “no hat” policy, CareNow should ban it under a “no tie” policy, since ties are potential disease vectors. From New Scientist:
"This study brings into question whether wearing a necktie is in the best interest of our patients," says NYHMCQ's [New York Hospital Medical Center of Queen] Steven Nurkin, who led the team …
The team decided to probe the bacterial content of physicians' ties after a student doing a surgical rotation at the hospital noticed that doctors' ties occasionally brushed against patients during an examination.
Nearly half - 20 out of 42 - ties sampled from male doctors, physician assistants and medical students walking the wards on three different days contained a reservoir of pathogens.
This compared with just one in 10 of the ties taken from security personnel who acted as the control group. The odds of a clinician wearing a contaminated tie were eight times greater than that of security personnel.
In an interview, Nurkin said: "I watched the doctors come over for a physical exam or procedure and saw the neckties would swing in front of the patient's face, or patients would cough on them. … Studies such as this remind us about what we may bring to our patients' bedside. By increasing our awareness and making simple behavioral changes we may be able to provide a better quality of healthcare."
If patients can contaminate a swath of fabric the size of a necktie with their germs, and these germs can travel from bedside to bedside, it’s only common sense that good infection control procedures – remember, the Obama administration has identified reducing hospital-acquired infections as one way to reduce healthcare costs – would require that any dangling, loose fabric should be banned. Including – perhaps especially – hijabs.
Update: Instead of putting its patients’ well-being ahead of all other considerations, CareNow is taking the path of least resistance and backing down, reports The Associated Press: “CareNow, which has nearly two dozen minor emergency clinics in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, called the headscarf ban a misunderstanding and said it plans to train workers to prevent confusion in the future.”
The Shoe Is On The Other Foot
Pakistani-born Rabia Sarwar, 37, confessed to attempting to slit the throat of her husband, Sheikh Naseem, as he slept because he was not the devout Muslim she thought him to be when they wed. She said he pressured her to eat pork and drink alcohol, and admitted that she “snapped” and “tried my best to cut his throat” and cut her husband’s neck, right cheek and right hand before he grabbed the knife from her, reports the Staten Island Advance:
Ms. Sarwar … told investigators that Naseem, who is half-Pakistani, had presented himself as a devout Muslim before the two had wed five months ago.
But after the marriage, she discovered more about him, she told investigators - before meeting her, he had only dated non-Muslims, and he considered Salman Rushdie to be one of his favorite authors.
Rushdie’s book, “The Satanic Verses,” was reviled by hard-line Muslims for what they considered an unflattering portrayal of the prophet Mohammed, and in 1989,
Naseem told the New York Post that his wife was having trouble adjusting to American culture. Ya think?
[Hat Tip: The Heel, an Ivy-educated attorney with a prestigious
Ill Jong-Il’s Doppelgängers
International scuttlebutt has it that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is not always who he appears be, and that he has used look-alikes to take his place on a number of the 122 appearances he has made at factories, cultural events – and even meetings with world leaders, reports The Christian Science Monitor:
The wave of public appearances reported by the North Korean propaganda machine since then to show he's in good health convinces some analysts that North Korean actors are portraying the Dear Leader …
Japanese writer Toshimitsu Shigemura, who has written two books and numerous articles claiming that Kim has been seriously ill for the past decade and may even have died … says that if the real Kim, looking wan and weak, appeared before the Supreme People's Assembly several days after North Korea fired a long-range missile on April 5, then it must have been a look-alike who hosted former US President Bill Clinton in August. …
Shigemura suspects that a skilled actor delivered the lines to Mr. Clinton during their three-hour, 17-minute meeting, which ended with Mr. Clinton flying back to the
Shigemura is equally convinced that an actor played Kim in recent meetings with
Shigemura says he can name three Japanese who claim to have met the look-alikes.
Editorial Note: The scariest thing that could happen to anyone who owns a laptop happened to The Stiletto on Halloween: A cup of coffee got knocked over and flooded the keyboard, after which the computer made a series of very loud high-pitched beeps, the screen turned blue and the machine turned itself off – which is why Friday’s edition was never posted. A loaner laptop from a friend of this blog got The Stiletto up and running for today’s edition. The Stiletto regrets her clumsiness, and any inconvenience to her readers.
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