"Currently, staff can refuse to treat non-critical patients who are verbally aggressive or physically violent towards them," reports Sky News. "But these protections will extend to any harassment, bullying or discrimination, including homophobic, sexist or racist remarks."
Police will also be given new powers to prosecute "hate crimes" committed against NHS staff.
What is determined to be "racist" or "homophobic" is anyone's guess, since many elderly patients will be totally unfamiliar with modern politically correct speech codes and could be deemed to have behaved in a racist or homophobic way even if they didn't maliciously intend to.
As Jack Montgomery highlights, "In late 2017 an NHS patient who requested a female nurse to carry out a cervical smear complained when the hospital sent a person with "an obviously male appearance... close-cropped hair, a male facial appearance and voice, large number of tattoos and facial stubble" who insisted "My gender is not male. I'm a transsexual."
The line between critical and non-critcal care is also up for debate. Will refusal to treat a patient because they said something someone deems offensive result in accidental deaths?
This is even worse than China's social credit score, which hasn't yet gone so far as to punish people by withdrawing medical treatment if they engage in wrongthink.
First it was deplatforming people from social media websites, then it was deplatforming people from bank accounts and mortgages. Now it's deplatforming people from hospital treatment. Literally eliminating people's right to basic health care because of their political or social opinions.
It's also important to emphasize that these changes are coming in under a supposedly "conservative" government.
Respondents poked fun at the new rules.
"This is going to be hilarious when a boomer is denied his double bypass cause he called someone coloured on Facebook," remarked one.
"Don't get sick in the UK if you've ever posted "Grooming gang" statistics," commented another.
Reader Comments
Can you imagine the chaos in the emergency room whilst the doctors and nurses browse through the patient's last 10 years of FB and twitter posts!
When you work in healthcare, you don't get to choose who deserves your help. It's your fucking job, and if you can't take verbal abuse from sick, dying, and injured patients, you're in the wrong fucking business.
B.C.
They should save a fortune on geriatric care .... all those fuzzy octogenarians who haven't had all traces of the racism they were brought up with conditioned out of them .... they'll be one of those few remaining veterans from WW2 who might say something indiscreet to a German nurse
Do they already exclude Tourette's sufferers from getting medical treatment?