How should medical staff react to this:

Of course it can go both ways. The reality is that in 99.9% of case, it goes the same way. Fact.

GrandmaJan ... agree, me too .... like I said previously I owe my and my husbands life to competent surgeons and care staff

Solange...I have to take issue with you on the language front, as when DH was in hospital with a serious condition, the language skills from several EU countries ( Italy, Spain and Greece) was so poor that errors were made, one which could have been awful! The Indian, and African staff ( not brought up in Britain as they had clear accents) were easy to understand and their English was very good indeed ( in the case of the Indian nurse, better than the British!)

If you want to choose your surgeon by colour then go private. Who ignored my "Dr I've had blood in my stools for some time now" a white gp. Who acted like lightening to get me a colinoscopy - a chinese dr. Who refused to delay the procedure because the woman ahead of me had kicked off big time (I was the last patient on the list) causing a mega delay-an indian doctor & his team who obviously had a great deal of time for him. Not only did he put me at ease, insisted there was no rush, explained everything, showed me the screen, he discovered the cause (haemorrhoids) & treated them there and then because he could & it made sense 'not to put me through all this again' he toldme it wasn't cancer because he wanted me not to worry. Bless him. I changed my GP after that.

I so agree about the language. My DH had a stroke which affected the speech processing area of his brain, and found it almost impossible to follow anyone who had a strong regional or ethnic accent. Unless I was there to interpret he had no clue what was being said to him. I kept telling the staff of his difficulties, but no notice was ever taken. He needed good clear English, spoken slowly, as his brain was always doing catch-up. He would never have dreamt of refusing treatment from anyone, and was so grateful to everyone who cared for him.

I thought that all had to take an English exam before being employed by the NHS, at their own expense too.

Even those whose first language is English, such as those Australia, New Zealand, South Africa.

The language skills of the Indian consultant I saw this week were impeccable, yes, he had an accent but so do I apparently - according to some of our relatives whose first language is not English.

I work as a volunteer in a 1,000 bed hospital and very few of the medical staff are white British, including the most senior consultants and surgeons. This is the reality of the NHS and thank goodness these wonderful people continue to work here despite the way a minority of patients treat them. On one of my wards we have a white British sister whose speech is very hard indeed to understand because she was born deaf, so its not only staff whose first language was not English who have indistinct speech.

Utterly disgusting,I cant understand what the country is coming to. I worked as a Nurse all my life, worked with Nurses and Doctors from every Country in the world and have never heard anything like this, why cant people just get along and accept each other, their competence, the colour of their skin, these professionals treat everyone equally.

I suspect that the Brexit debate, over the last few years, plus the rhetoric that emanates from The White House has emboldened the bigots and racists in the UK.

I am presuming most of the posters on this thread are white British. It does warm my heart to read of the support here for the non-white Doctors. May I add my 2 pennies worth..... When there was an influx of Indian Doctors in the 70s, they were mostly recruited to work in the Welsh Valleys, and other unglamorous areas of the country. My Ex was one of them.
He loved his job and loved the people, who took us into their hearts . This is now our home. Thankyou to all who made us feel so welcome. None of my family have experienced any form of racism. .. my children are all married to white British/ Welsh and all our families have "blended" well.

It seems to me that there needs to be a national policy which requires those refusing treatment by a person of a specific colour, creed or sex, should have to sign a disclaimer accepting that treatment would therefore be delayed and accepting liability for any resulting consequences. If the treatment was non urgent they should then be returned to the bottom of the waiting list. In cases where urgent treatment was necessary the disclaimer would clear the hospital of liability for any consequences of delay.

Personally I find it astonishing that anyone would refuse treatment fom a qualified practitioner unless they had clear evidence of that person's incompetence. Sadly such people exist and I feel sorry for those who are on the receiving end of such disgusting behaviour.

We read the book in our book club, a very powerful book and one that caused great discussion, our age group from 38 to 65. It was interesting as it was very diverse.
Anyone recommend similar books

This is shocking, no doubt about that, but what I find truly appalling is that a lot of the staff who receive racist remarks from patients do not report them. By not reporting every incident, whether the remark was made "casually" or not they are masking the frequency of these totally inacceptable remarks. I doubt very much will be done to stop these remarks until and unless all remarks are reported at the end of every day's work.

To those who are discriminated against, do please remember that until women started protesting against sexist remarks, people could get away with them, and until rape was regularly reported men could get away with that too.

It should be made very clear to patients that hospitals are staffed by fully qualified people and that patients cannot demand to be treated by anyone in particular.

Admittedly, women might well prefer female staff and men male staff, but that is not the way we in this part of the world have ever run hospitals, nor do we intend to start doing so now.

Those who object to staff on ethnic grounds are welcome to find and pay a private hospital that only employs staff that meet their racist points of view.

Unfortunately, a public hospital can probably neither legally nor ethically refuse to treat a patient because he or she make themselves obnoxious. No hospital, nor any individual member of staff would be willing to run the risk of a person who died, or experienced complications because no-one had treated them, so leaving these obnoxious people unattended is really not an option.

A hefty surcharge (for staff time) sent by hospital administrators directly, to any patient who refuses care without a documented, justifiable reason.

Almost all of the drs,consultants,nurses etc who regularly see or treat myself and my two youngest sons (we all have varying medical conditions) on a regular basis,including our gp's surgery and dentists,are not white,nor british,but it does not matter to us, they are very good,and as said by Oldwoman70,so long as we're being seen by a qualified person i don't care about anything else.

These people (who refuse to be treated) would soon change their minds if the 'non white' drs etc that they're refusing to see were the only ones available to save their lives in an emergency im sure.

Trainee staff are also very good.

I was speaking to a friend who had recently been in hospital. She was telling me how the lady in the next bed was being extremely rude and racist towards the staff there. She was so incensed that she told the woman to be quiet. The staff were great and moved her bed, putting a deaf lady next to the offending person. Unfortunately they are not allowed to say any thing to the racist person. .Wrong!

The bigoted and ignorant don’t learn easily. Maybe a dose of reality would not be a bad thing. So why not have a box to tick for the preferred colour / ethnicity of surgeon for non threatening procedures and go on a waiting list. Let them suffer the consequences of their own actions, not us, and not the incredible doctors , who all study 8-15 years and take the same exams regardless of colour !! Of the 7 surgeons in my hospital team only 2 were white British so they’d have a long wait!
My recent major op was done by an Arab surgeon who is a pure genius and at the top of the field! Three months later I wouldn’t know he’d done anything if he didn’t show me on the scan. Getting him was like winning the lottery ! A friend of mine is Egyptian, training at Moorfields eye hospital to be a surgeon, and there isn’t a Brit on the whole course! Hospitals take the best qualified they can get and it’s not always white Brits !

My hip replacement, last May, was performed by a black surgeon, and I was looked after by a wonderful team of nurses with varying shades of skin. I didn't give a you-know-what about their colour, and couldn't fault their skill and dedication. Hats off to Wrightington Hospital, here in Wigan. It's a centre of excellence for replacement operations, and they did a wonderful job for me.

I think that all racist idiots should be given a compulsory DNA test. Most of us in the UK are complete 'mongrels', with ancestors from all over the world. Finding out that they probably have part African, Asian or other such genetic heritage would, hopefully, shut them up for good!

You’d be amazed at the general ignorance and downright rudeness to staff and the NHS in general!
Peoples expectations are unreal.

I was once badly misdiagnosed by a very experienced,white british 'upper class' consultant, who,on being told i had a broken bone by a young A&E dr. said to me "what would he know? He's only a junior!"- the young junior was right,as it happens,i had indeed broken it,but i was in pain for 6wks,until a different consultant operated and sorted it out.I narrowly missed having to have a bone graft as well to do so.All because of a big blunder by a so- called 'upper class' white british,"better" consultant,who had such a huge ego to go with it! (By the way,the junior was also a white dr,but i shudder to think what this idiot consultant would have come out with if the junior had also been of a different colour or race!)

That's shocking and yes ignorant. It shouldn't matter, whoever can do the job, regardless of who they are.

I must admit that I had to ask a Chinese nurse to write down what she said as I couldn't understand her (her English was really bad). Asked to repeat it, she shouted (I'm not deaf). She was very annoyed.

When I told my GP, she said that a (very) elderly English man had refused point blank to attend a local hospital without an interpreter!

It seems that we have excellent laws in place to prevent racism/sexism however, the message still is not getting through that derogatory remarks are totally unacceptable. I don't think much will change until people are punished accordingly ie by refusing to treat them.