Christians and agnostics are dirty - official

Department for Health has ruled that

female Muslim staff will be permitted to cover their arms on hospital wards to preserve their modesty.

Presumably, before either rolling their nice clean sleeves back down to preserve their modesty, or pulling on the nice disposable sleeves the hospitals will buy, they'll scrub their arms really carefully.

Ah, maybe not.

Leicester University said some Muslim females ‘had difficulty in complying with the procedures to roll up sleeves to the elbow for appropriate handwashing’, while Sheffield University reported a case of a Muslim medic who refused to ‘scrub’ as this left her forearms exposed.

It would be interesting to know how a clean piece of fabric covering arms and hands that haven't been washed is going to either improve or enhance patient safety, especially as nurses etc wear their uniforms when travelling to and from work.

The latest guidance is at odds with previous DoH guidance guidance, which said that

... all staff should be ‘bare below the elbow’ after long sleeves were blamed for spreading bacteria, leading to superbug deaths

Those rules were a waste of time then.

It would seem that jewellery will not longer be forbidden either, as long as it's worn on the arms - where patients are likely to come into contact with it, because

Sikhs can wear bangles, as long as they can be pushed up the arm during direct patient care

Presumably they'll be expected to wash their hands both before and after pushing their bangles up their arms?

Mrs Rigby wonders why, if all these rules can be varied according to an individual's background and personal preferences, patients are required to remove wedding rings etc before even the most minor of surgery.

Surely, these days, washing hands or putting a piece of sticking plater over ear rings would be enough to stop germs from migrating from something as aseptic as gold.

The decision was reached by a working party

comprising two Health Department officials, a member of the Health Protection Agency, two female Muslim hospital chaplains, an Imam and two members of MSCP (that's Muslim Spiritual Care Provision in the NHS)

It's hardly surprising that

"Lord Carey, one of seven bishops to sign a letter supporting Mrs Chaplin at her tribunal, said the Government was guilty of ‘double standards’"

and

"campaigners for the rights of Christian nurses to wear crosses said the Health Department had failed to consult them adequately"

The revised rules were quietly issued on March 26 2010.

Shirley Chaplin lost her appeal relating to the wearing of a crucifix on 6th April 2010 - 11 days after the DoH announcement.

Oh, and separately, thanks to Old Holborn for letting us know that the Met allows Islamic protesters to throw shoes

Scotland Yard has bowed to Islamic sensitivities and accepted that Muslims are entitled to throw shoes in ritual protest — which could have the unintended consequence of politicians or the police being hit.

Protesters can still be charged with "violent disorder" if they throw stones, plastic juice bottles etc, but not if they throw footwear, of any description, including nice soft things such as

ski-boots and clogs

It would seem that no special announcement was made, it the 'concession' was slipped in quietly following the arrest of more than 70 Muslim protesters outside the Israeli Embassy in London

Judge Denniss agreed that the act of shoe-throwing should not be considered in a charge of violent disorder against the student because it was “a symbolic” political gesture.

Got to smile though, because although the Police offered ... a facility allowed for people to bring old pairs of shoes

... they didn’t realise we were going to throw the shoes so hard

Makes you wonder who'll be the first to, accidentally of course, get a stone in their shoe.

....