UP YOUR DANDER, DEAR READERS, UP YOUR DANDER

Rabbosai, I wish to bring the following to your attention:


See:
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/wilson/51498/

"---As part of a pervasive pattern of religious discrimination a disabled Jewish US Navy veteran says he has encountered at the Iowa City Veterans Administration Hospital and Clinic, David "Akiva David" Miller writes: "Over time it has become clear that each experience of discrimination is not isolated from the others; in fact the problem of religious discrimination is systemic to the Iowa City VA.... I am a disabled veteran who served my Country honorably in the US Navy. I am also an Orthodox Jew ....not only did the hospital refuse to notify my Rabbi, as I requested, they sent a Protestant chaplain in to see me each time. The first two visits by the Protestant (Assembly of God) Chaplain were all about trying to convert me - trying to convince me that I needed Jesus, that Jesus was the Messiah of the Jews too - this while I was suffering chest pains and wired to a heart monitor!"


Find more here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/1/204132/8159

And especially here:
http://iowa-city-akiva.dailykos.com/

"---Even after my meeting with the VA patient advocate and a representative from Chaplain Services Wednesday (accompanied by my Rabbi), the VA has agreed to rectify only one of the issues of religious discrimination I have brought forward: they have agreed to provide kosher food for patients who request it. During my three hospitalizations at the Iowa City VA Hospital I had been denied kosher food and had to endure each hospitalization without eating. Regarding all other issues, both those I have addressed within my blog and others: the VA has refused outright to take action on some, and others the VA has agreed only to "look into." "


Further:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050807R.shtml

"---An Orthodox Jew and former petty officer in the US Navy said his civil rights were violated after a chaplain and officials at a Veterans Administration hospital in Iowa City, Iowa, tried to convert him to Christianity while he was under the VA's care.

----David Miller, 46, who is on full disability, said in an interview that his physician at the VA hospital told him last week to go home and pray or meditate in place of using medication to relieve the pain he was experiencing from kidney stones. When Miller complained to VA staffers that his physician suggested he turn to God to treat his medical condition and refused to prescribe pain medication, VA officials provided him with a new doctor.

"---My doctor said that since I am a religious Jew, I should try prayer or meditation to deal with the pain," Miller said. "I was shocked that a medical doctor would make such a suggestion. I immediately raised hell and was assigned a new physician."

And further on:

"---In an email response to Harkin, a copy of which was obtained by Truthout, the hospital said when a patient is admitted to the VA hospital he or she is queried about religious preference at registration.

"---There is a standard list which, includes Jewish as one of the religious preference options," Sharp said in his response to Harkin, without specifically addressing Miller's claims. "The admissions clerk should be checking with the patients to ensure that their preference or no preference is accurately indicated on the admission registration forms."

----Sharp said that in accordance with Department of Veterans Affairs guidelines, "pastoral counseling to patients" is not limited to a specific faith.

"---The spiritual aspect of health and wellness is recognized by all caregivers and addressed in all patient care settings," Sharp wrote. "


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I'm sure that you can see the problem with this approach to the physical and spiritual well-being of a patient. And, if it happened to you, you would probably be more than a little bit upset.

I claim not to be biased against any religion (no really, I swear). My bleeding-heart ultra-liberalism forces me to consider all religions as having equal legal and social validity (I'm not talking about the quotient of absurdity - some are much higher on that scale than others).

Nevertheless, I do fear that if an 'Assembly of god' chaplain tried to treat me as a captive audience, by reason of hospitalization, I would do everything in my power to ensure the same treatment for him. His hospitalization might be longer than mine - I have no control over the impact that hard institutional furniture makes on soft, spongy crania.


I approve of David Miller taking the Veterans Administration to task on this matter. A hospital is not the place for missionary activities. If anyone indeed denied him medication and told him to try prayer, that hospital is not the place for them either. They are not fit to serve, and should not be allowed anywhere near tax-payer funded institutions.


My great-grandmother used to chase away missionaries at the door by saying in her upper-crust accent: "Young man, I am a baddist (she meant 'Bhuddist'). Now go away or I shall be violent".
Even though it would be impossible to imagine anyone so well-mannered (and so small) being violent, the approach apparently worked.