I am glad that they took action. No one, Muslim or non-Muslim, likes those hospital gowns. But no one was able to get anything done about it until the multiculturalist imperative made it necessary to be sensitive to the perspectives and values of Muslims. The problem with that is that it establishes a pattern of action; will this pattern be able to be broken when it comes to Islamic religious and cultural practices that violate accepted standards of human rights for the treatment of women and non-Muslims? Will it be able to be broken when it comes to Islam's drive for political hegemony?
From AP, with thanks to Ali Dashti:
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Whether it's blue or spotted or striped, the standard issue hospital gown is drafty and revealing. It's embarrassing for just about anyone who's spent a night in a medical center. But for modest Muslim women, it's an unthinkable indignity.When officials at Maine Medical Center discovered many Muslim women were so ashamed they were canceling doctor visits, the hospital took action, redesigning the standard gown to provide extra coverage for patients who want it. The new hospital gowns have been available for several weeks.
``I have witnessed their misery and how bad they feel about it. They don't like it. They feel ashamed. It's very embarrassing,'' said Asha Abdulleh, a native of Kenya and a medical interpreter.
``This is a great example of a challenge raised by a specific community that can ultimately benefit all patients,'' said Dana Farris Gaya, the hospital's manager of interpreter and cross-cultural services.
The problem was acute for Maine Medical because 2,000 Somali refugees have come to Portland over the past few years and most of them are treated at the hospital's international clinic. As many as three out of 10 women were skipping their appointments, said Osman Hersi, a medical interpreter at the hospital.
Tracked down at home, the women whose religion and culture require them to be covered, described to interpreters the horror of being asked to wear the revealing gowns during outpatient procedures. Furthermore, they were publicly humiliated when they had to wait in a hallway in the radiology department.
On a recent morning after the new patient gowns were provided, Shamso Abdi appeared for her first hospital visit since arriving in Portland. She and her husband, Aden Ali, came to the United States from Mogadishu, Somalia. They lived in a small town in Kentucky, and then Columbus, Ohio, before coming to Portland.
Abdi, who was clothed in a dress, a sarong and a hijab, a scarf wrapped around her head, said she had canceled appointments in Columbus when she had to see male doctors and wear the standard drafty gown.
The gown created by the Portland hospital is long enough to provide more coverage of a patient's legs and has extra material to ensure that a patient's backside remains covered. Underneath, there's a wraparound sarong for even more coverage.
Abdi said she was grateful to see that Maine Medical had created a patient gown with her principles in mind.
``I'm so happy they made the change. I'm so happy that they considered us,'' she said, speaking through an interpreter.
Other hospitals are responding to the needs of Muslims. In southeastern Michigan, home to 300,000 Arab-Americans, the University of Michigan Medical Center is also addressing the issue of modesty.
The hospital is thinking of posting signs on the rooms of Muslim women warning male visitors and staff to check with a nurse's station before entering, said spokeswoman Krista Hopson in Ann Arbor, Mich.
The gowns were a bit drafty, however hospital gowns are designed to give the doctor access to the patients body. While waiting in the hallways patients are given 2 gowns(or you could simply request 2), one is worn the right way and the other is worn like a robe, the only thing visible would be from the knee down, do these women really think that people in a hospital waiting room ,some waiting for news of a loved one, some waiting for good or bad news about their own situation are really interested in looking at their knees..modesty is fine but really if you are at a hospital you likely have more to worry about than someone seeing your knees. The article also states that they do not want to see male doctors...there are many more male doctors than female, therefore if they are missing appointments for that then thats too bad. What would the modest muslim women in the throes of a heart attack do...they will be exposing her chest...hmmm die or let the male doctor (who is DEFINATLY not getting a thrill from her boobs) do his job and save her life. What kind of health care did these women get in somalia....were they ushered fully and modestly clothed into a clean modern healthcare facility...I would bet they were waiting in a dirty fly infested building with no airconditioning for a doctor (likely a male) for treatment that was inferior to anything they are getting in the US...to say nothing of when these modest women are going in to give birth...trust me when I say that if you had any kind of modesty before having a baby, you have none afterwards, seemed like every medical person on the floor came to have a peek when I was in labor, not to mention how many different doctors and nurses were poking around...point is getting medical treatment is never fun and although medical staff try to observe a certain amount of modesty, medical treatments are unpleasent, if they were pleasent we would want a checkup at the gyno every day...not!!
This is sick! Just because they beleive in a pedophile sexually depraved pseudo-prophet they think that every man is a sexual depraved like him.
I'd say that the hospital gowns probably make a lot of people uncomfortable, because they are perhaps a bit too revealing, so I understand that, but I find it unreasonable to complain about Muslim women having to see male doctors, or restricting male visitors if there is a Muslim woman in the same room. That’s just taking things too far.
I'm guessing it's looser to allow for the C4
suicide vest to blend in to the contour of the body. This way children won't be pre-maturely frightened as they walk into pediatrics and slaughter every infidel pig child.
Think Somali women would be lucky to see a doctor in their own country.They have a right to modesty however and let us hope they won't be breaking any more appointments because of 'dress code'.Is Somalia one of those countries which practise dreadful and barbaric female circumcision??
Excuse me while I fume. This is such an insult to Christian women. Christian women found the gowns and medical procedures just as embarrassing as Muslim women. We, however, had ABSOLUTELY NO HOPE THAT THE HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATION WOULD LISTEN TO US. Christian women truly and justifiably believed our concerns would be ignored. Women in this country had to fight for more woman-friendly obstetrics programs which, in the past, were quite condescending and insensitive to the intelligence of the mother.
The irrational and, I think, immoral behavior of the Muslim women is rewarded. How insulting to Christian and other non-Muslims women. No non-Muslim woman would jeopardize the health of her child just because of modesty concerns. Here is the reasoning:"A man other than my husband might see my body so I will avoid health care that could ensure the health of my new baby." What insane and barbarous reasoning. We are endorsing and approving this insane and barbarous reasoning.
Do non-Muslim women get this type of accommodation? Someone ought to sue this hospital on behalf of non-Muslim women. Are non-Muslim women just herded around carelessly? Apparently our modesty and senstivities mean nothing.
It never ceases to amaze me how a religion which allows polygamy and male divorce on demand, a religion which essentially permits men all the women they might want, including slave girls, has the unmitigated gall to parade around with moral condescension in the presence of the rest of us.
SPUTTER, SPUTTER, SPUTTER
That is absolutly true, but of course the lawsuit would be quickly called "racist" by muslims. We have a friend that is an EMT, he and his coworkers had to take a seminar on muslim women and how to be "sensitive to their modesty"...I thought he was kidding, but no, they are to stabalize a muslim woman being as careful about her modesty as possible and try to have a female EMT called in...yes big car accident, huge shard of glass through her thigh, going to bleed to death...BUT...dont look under her 50 layers of clothing to stop the bleeding and save her life, lets wait until we can locate a female EMT...sickening!! Like he said there will be deaths and lawsuits because of the EMTs having to be so cautious about muslim modesty...even more sickening, her husband would likely stand by and watch her die rather than have HIS "honor" disgraced by a male EMT removing any of her clothing to save her life.
The hospital gowns have been in need of alterations for decades. Howcome they never provided changes in the design of these gowns for the great non-Muslims in the world?
Just another perk of belonging to a pushy, arrogant, demanding minority cult I suppose. I have to say, this really gives some potent bragging rights to the Muslims.
Do the gowns have zip-in hijabs?
If this is their claim to fame, better them than me.
The stories I hear from care givers is not the altering of the gown design,it's the infidelophobia by Muslims to not understand
the value of personal Hygene.
Taking a bath every decade of so would really show a sign of tolerance to infidels that aren't used to the gagging stinch from people that lived in hot climate areas with little fresh water to
clean themselves or worry about going out in public every day.
Ann Coultor was attacked for her comment on Arab men that tend to have B.O. and bad breath,now she's being attacked for her response to what she would do if she was a Muslim.
The comment she made was that she'd murder Jews and wear a Burqa,Muslims weren't upset at her advocating violence against Jews,they were offended by the negative stereo-type of Muslim women.
Do you see the problem here,everything is about them and their feelings.
Lets ban Islam and the Quran soon,the gig is up and Muhammed didn't preach peace.
Two things:
First, it's amazing that somehow Muslim women are allowed a certain modesty that the rest of us are not. Muslim women are beside themselves with having to show their bottom, but the rest of us aren't? Why didn't anyone care when it was just us Christian folk? Because even though it is a truly ridiculous shameful garment, it is practical. Somehow, Muslim women are excused from the practicality of science.
Next, what's really ironic about this is that it was a shame for these women to see a male doctor with a revealing gown, but in almost every Arab country under Sharia, there are few female doctors left, esp. OB/GYNs. Sure, midwives are women, but a midwife isn't going to be able to give you a C-section if something goes wrong. So, rather than have someone other than a man view their privvies, they'll endanger the life of their child, and their own lives as well.
I dont know about the rest of you but I have a problem with anyone having their faces covered keeping a hidden identity.
There should be no adjustments of laws to afford luxury to pigs yoou know hate you.How ironic will it be to find out one day that terrorist's used this concealment procedure to some extent, right under our nose's.
Next main will allow honor killing? and Female mutialation?
They do those things in their mulsum countrys too?
I say let them have no health care if they don't like they way we live in this country then GET THE HELL OUT OF MY COUNTRY!!!
You will find that these people flock to states that are lib. If you stand your grown they will back down do not give in we have to take a stand there is no where to run?
Wonder what all the Mulsums in N.J have to say about being ruled by a homosexual? and a Israeli for homeland they got away with a lot and now ?
If you think you support libs look at what starts to happen and soon it will be like they are in France cry-ing what can we do ? and then it will soon be like history like this?
Forgotten D-Day And Its Vets
Associated Press
August 14, 2004
PARIS - Historians call it The Forgotten D-Day.
But aging veterans like John Shirley vividly recall Aug. 15, 1944, when they stepped ashore on the French Riviera and delivered an uppercut to Hitler's diminishing army.
"Maybe it was a sideline to the big fights up north, but it was a very important invasion," said Shirley, 79, speaking from his home in Livermore, Calif.
Tourists soaking up the Riviera sun this weekend will have to make room for Shirley and hundreds of other aging war veterans descending on the Provence region of southern France to commemorate Operation Dragoon and be honored by the French nation they liberated.
"The Normandy landings were a spectacular operation that everyone knows about, and we commemorate it with enormous fanfare," said French historian Andre Kaspi. "Then, there are the Provence landings that are more or less forgotten, but nonetheless essential."
Operation Dragoon, and the D-Day landings in Normandy 70 days earlier, caught France's German occupiers in a pincer. Though smaller than D-Day in scale and Allied losses, Dragoon brought about 350,000 Allied soldiers ashore along a 50-mile stretch between Toulon and Cannes.
Compared with the D-Day anniversary hoopla in June - attended by President Bush, Queen Elizabeth II, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and others - the commemorations Saturday and Sunday will be distinctly low key.
La Motte, the first village liberated in Operation Dragoon, will host a ceremony Saturday at which nine British veterans will be decorated with the Legion of Honor, France's most prestigious decoration.
Later Saturday nine American veterans will receive the Legion of Honor from French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie at the Rhone American Cemetery in nearby Draguignan. It overlooks the graves of 861 soldiers who fell during the landings and in the weeks that followed. The bodies of 1,600 other Americans were repatriated.
On Sunday President Jacques Chirac will be aboard the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, anchored off Toulon, hosting leaders of 16 African nations that were French possessions in World War II and which provided soldiers for the Allies. Also present will be several hundred veterans including Shirley.
The former staff sergeant is leading a dozen American veterans, mostly in their 80s, on a package bus tour that some say will be their last trip to the battlefield. One of them is 84-year-old George Burks.
"This is my last hurrah. I'm sure of it. I don't want to wait another 10 years," said the former first lieutenant before leaving Englewood, N.J., for France for his first trip back since 1944. He, like Shirley, fought with the 15th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division.
Operation Dragoon was to have coincided with D-Day but there were no landing craft to spare. Winston Churchill, the wartime British prime minister, had fiercely resisted the operation, preferring to focus Allied strength in the north. The Americans prevailed, arguing for a pincer movement.
French troops had played only a minor role in D-Day, and Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French forces, was eager for them to have a big part in liberating the important port cities of Toulon and Marseille. Half of Operation Dragoon's invasion force was French.
When the invasion finally was unleashed, thousands of paratroopers, mostly American and British, bore the brunt, preceding the amphibious operation in drops north of the coast. The night of Aug. 14, 1944 was foggy and many fell short and drowned at sea.
History books and many veterans recall thin German resistance to the invasion, but the chaos of battle has prevented a definitive count of Allied deaths. The French Defense Ministry says 1,300 Allied soldiers died in the first two days.
Burks remembers those first two days well.
The Mediterranean was calm and the sky bright blue as U.S. rockets thundered overhead and Burks' landing craft delivered him to dry land on a beach outside St. Tropez.
"That was a plus. We never got our feet wet," he said. "But it didn't take away the terror, crouching behind that bow, and when it went down you didn't know what to expect."
Shirley, whose 3rd Infantry Division had already fought at Anzio in Italy and helped liberate Rome, lost five of his 12 men storming ashore near St. Tropez. "We didn't hit any mines, but we did run into German machine guns and rifles," he recalled.
Hitler pulled back German forces from the south just two days into Operation Dragoon. Allied troops liberated Toulon and Marseille in late August, and took Lyon, France's second largest city, on Sept. 3.
Fierce fighting lay ahead as Allied troops moved into the Vosges Mountains near the German border.
"For the first month, it was amazing how fast we moved. But, then we got into October and the rains," said Burks.
He paused, then continued: "I can still walk out onto my back porch when it rains, and I can smell the Vosges. It all comes back."
Yes in only one day on one beach? We lost 400,000 but the world lost 50,000,000 Wake up Americans Are you willing to fight here well get ready cause who says I will die for you because of your stupidity?
Part of the American Tribe
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and All who Fight with her give them Strength,Wisdom and Courage to stay the course to Victory Amen
PS
Love this country even the Black Bears like to drink Beer! Some Bear got into some-ones Beer and had no problem getting the cans open and had his own little party?
Somalian women are typically undernourished in recent years, and though they are small, too often their children in pregnancy are not, which leads to the child not passing through the mother's body properly; and then, due to the fistula, the partially born baby, the woman is cast from the home and village to die wherever she may, incapable of either delivering the baby or surviving the decay of the child within her.
The question of modesty is not appropriate in women's heath issues. The issue of men's attitudes toward female biology is the issue of import here, and men should not be allowed to interfere in medical procedures in American hospitals governed by American laws set for the protection of all, not simply to cater to the tribal customs of some East African males.
Hospital gowns or nakedness in hospitals, it makes no difference to the baby being born. Those who would interfere in the birth process to the point of expelling a woman in difficult circumstances have no right in America, let alone hospitals. By catering to the tribal rites of isolated people suddenly finding themselves in the greater world, we propagate the slavery, mutilation and death of those who are in need of intervention, not cultural sensitivity.
Chuck fumed (and rightfullly so) "I dont know about the rest of you but I have a problem with anyone having their faces covered keeping a hidden identity."
Check this babe out. Not you, Rez, we don't want you overheating.
http://www.nojihad.com/opinions/sultana.htm
Yes we must be careful not to humiliate them....why a bare knee, or foot, or even a bare toe could just set the waiting room in a frenzy....THAT is if the room were full of Muslim men.
The same room of Muslim men I assume would have no problem at all in showing and holding the decapitated head of an infidel, and or dragging the dead corpse around the streets of their slums cheering and chanting. These would also have no problem in sending their children to their deaths just as long as a few Jews and infidels were taken along the way.
But please lets respect their sensitivities....after all a naked knee or foot or toe??
What next? are they to be humiliated by having their faces exposed??THATS WOULD BE DISGUSTING and below their dignity....after all they are the keepers of dignity....Islam is a great example of it........Oh how we all just want to embrace it.
In Europe the situation is much worse. Male obstetricians in Italy complain that they must deliver Muslim babies with their backs turned to the patient, so that they are forced to relay their commands to female nurses -- it would not do for them to see the patients when delivering the babies. That this is far more time-consuming, and expensive (because it requires far more time, and utlilizes both the delivery-room and personnel for longer periods), and of course dangerous, is obvious. Since almost all Muslim patients in Europe are being paid for by the taxpayers(the rich Arabs in Saudi Arabia, U. A. E., Kuwait go to Harley Street or to American clinics, when they do not stay at home to be treated by Western doctors who may not stick around much longer).
Somalis flood into Lewiston. They receive very expensive medical care, paid for by local taxpayers. When the mayor of Lewiston complains about the number of Somalis flooding in, he is vilified up and down the land. The men, of course, refuse to let the women be seen or interrogated by doctors alone -- it must go through them. This makes every medical appointment a much more complicated affair -- for both must be available. And, of course, there must be an interpreter present, also paid for by the state, who does not merely do the duty of translating the patient's words to doctor and back, but rather male relative to doctor, from doctor to male relative, and then that interpreter must also check, at the doctor's behest, to make sure that what the female relative says, and is being told, is not somehow being twisted by her male relative (husband, father). This all adds up. The most expensive charity patients in the United States, given this "extra" layer of interpretation, and this requirement that a male relative must be present for the stricter families (in Great Britain, as various doctors have reported, the whole treatment of Muslim patients has become a nightmare of complexity, and "cultural sensitivity" run riot). All of this has a cost, a real cost, in time and money. All of it means that there will be fewer resources for non-Muslim charity patients, and that taxpayers will foot the bill.
This pales by comparison with the tens of billions of dollars now being spent, in the United States and all over the Western world, to monitor Muslim populations -- and such monitoring has barely begun. Simply to track the movements of one suspect requires several people. Imagine if you have hundreds of thousands of people to worry about out of a Muslim population of millions -- or perhaps even more. Again, it all adds up.
And then, along with the huge and growing expense -- money which is not available for schools or medical insurance for the poor, for example -- is the general tenor of life, in which, for example, even to maintain the possibilty of free speech in the U.K. or France, has become a fulltime struggle -- given that the Muslim lobby has turned almost every government office into a vehicle for suppressing all those who dare to voice criticism of Islam.
If you seek an example of this,google "Will Cummins" and "British Council" and read, in detail the craven letter written on August 12 by one "Rod Pryde who is "Assistant Director-General" of, one presumes, either "Asian Media" at the British Council, or of the British Council itself. " (Try to overlook the fact that his name sounds like a homosexual film star's pseudonym). You can also go to www.asiansmedia/ogr/news/article,php/publishing/552.
Among the things you may thank the British Council for is its "Representing Islam seminar in June 2003 at Hunton Park" and its "Keeping In Touch Project" (20 young Muslim journalists, keeping an online diary for Counterpoint Online, etc.) and "Building Turst in the Middle East" and the "Quarter-yearly round table meetins with Muslim professional and journalists" and, of course, "A Handbook on Islam for journalists" which "is an attempt to provide journalists with an accessible, informative and impartial resource on Islam and Muslim communities in Britian, to prevent ignorant comments about Muslimgs being made in the national press." Oh, you bet. And of course, "The articles by WillCummins are the antithesis of everything that we stand for and have worked to achieve over 70 years. We are determined to get to the bottom of this matter."
What has the British Council "worked to achieve over 70 years"? The suppression of a coherent, articulate and fully justified argument, claiming that a belief-system, just because it includes belief in a god, is therefore permanently immune to criticism? The suppression of all free speech? The need to make Great Britian into a Muslim-friendly environment no matter what Islam teaches? The prevention of free inquiry into what Islam teaches? The spreading of fear among journalists so that they will get with the program -- through this deliberate provision of an "informative and impartial resource" designed "to prevent ignorant comments about Muslims being made in the national press"?
This is as bad as anything Orwell could ever have dreamed up. It is there, in the words of Mr. "Rod Pryde" (sorry, I can't help myself -- I can't take my own advice given above).
Fire Rod Pryde. Keep Will Cummins.
I've been in the hospital many times, and had to wear those gowns. like the post above, if you like you can wear two of them. Myself, I'm not bashfull, and have been told many times to tie it up. Or put it on....
what's really the case here, is that a "religion" is forcing it's standards on the general population.
I'm sure all the loony left would be having fits if it were Christian women forcing their religious modesty on the general population, but for some reason these same anti-Christian lunatics bend over backwards to accomodate the backwards cult of Islam.
I say lets do things like they do in Islamic countries. put up a sheet with a hole in it. women can stick their ear or mouth up to it and recieve their medical treatment in that traditional matter. Think of the money medic-aide will save by NOT treating these social leaches.
Isn't medical treatment of any kind against the Islamic religion? I say let them die as Allah wills it. It's predetermined, isn't that what the koran says?
Well I for one find this disgusting......the damned pandering to Islamic forces is getting out of hand.......Muslims really really are starting to push too far.....
P.S Joe Banana, You were saying something about certain countries being 'multi- culturally sensitive? LoL! It's everywhere in north America, not just Canada. It seems that we are supposed to do everything to accomodate everyone elses culture except our own Christian redneck one. Being a white Christian redneck is almost a crime now it seems. fortunately here in the midwest it's still alive and well, one of the benefits of living in a sparsely populated part of the world. It may be flat and boring, but those imports don't like to live here.
Yes Albernator, it's disgusting isn't it? time to separate western Canada from the PC liberal fools to preserve our herritage. If they want to live in this part of canada, they should live acording to what our pioneer families built the west to be. If they want things the way it was in their former countries, they can get the hell out.
Well Canada does have those territories way way way up north that dont seem to be put to any good use...a few Indian reservations here and there but largely unused...why not send all muslims up there to start their own communities...yes its snowing in the summer...but they can adapt...yes enough of letting them mingle with the civilized citizens...they want their own way...great have it, but have it where no one else wants to be...and the Indians that live up there can certainly handle themselves, they wouldnt put up with any muslim crap near their land.
You know, I wouldn't have any problems if they had these gowns available for the patients, should they ask for them; but I wouldn't offer it to them unless they specifically asked for them.
As to keeping the waiting room free from men? Give me a break! They need to understand that if they want that sort of treatment they are free to seek medical treatment in the Islamic country of their choice. And, I would hold the door open for them after saying that, letting them know we won't change our general procedures for them.
The "sensitivities" of the Muslims remind me of a comment I once read:
"Sensitive people are just tyrannical people: everybody else has to adapt to them instead of their trying to adapt to others." (von Franz, Marie Louise, 1971 "Jung's Typology," Spring Publications Inc.)
And this is exactly what the Muslims are all about. They are childish tyrants who wish to impose their tyranny on the rest of us. I say we tell them to blow it out their ---.