Lack of sex separated facilities is religious discrimination

Editor—As a medical student in Birmingham, I regularly meet students, doctors, and patients of wide ranging religious beliefs. This includes many female Muslims, wearing head scarves and hijabs. Neither of these items of clothing present any problem whatsoever to communication with patients and good practice. In fact, as many non-Muslim female medical students wear low cut tops or tops that show their midriff, I see covering up as an advantage in maintaining a professional appearance.

One of the main problems with religious dress, as mentioned in July's article,¹ involves theatre scrubs and scrubbing-up. Theatre caps that adequately cover a head scarf already exist, and it would seem a reasonably simple solution to have scrubs that would cover more of the chest and arms.

The scrubbing-up problem may be more expensive to solve; building new female and male scrubbing areas may not currently be a realistic plan, especially in hospitals that are still struggling to have enough sinks on some wards. In the future, however, this could surely be taken into account when building new theatre facilities.

Although there may be little deliberate discrimination, the lack of facilities or lack of guidance concerning these issues could perhaps be construed as indirect religious discrimination. Surely in Birmingham, one of the United Kingdom's most multicultural cities, shouldn't these issues have already been considered? Or is it the General Medical Council's responsibility to ensure that medical students in the UK are not disadvantaged simply because of their religious beliefs?

1. Hebert K. Cover up. studentBMJ 2005;13:298-9. (July.)