Miranda Hughes

No.

It is not just expressing her political beliefs though is it? She is a nurse who thinks people who disagree with her should not be resuscitated which is tantamount to murder. It is not quite what her profession requires.
Yes it is right she has been sacked/

You can't have doctors and nurses picking and choosing who they will treat, or ambulance drivers choosing who they will pick up, or teachers choosing who they will teach......

A rather silly statement to make.

How would it be known who anyone voted for?

She was working for a private healthcare company who's handbook states that no employees should appear on tv. She broke the rules unfortunately. It wasn't simply for her political views. She's been on another tv show in the past ranting against the Tories evidently.

Calendargirl

A rather silly statement to make.

How would it be known who anyone voted for?

That is how I feel, a silly statement to make on National TV.

I think this put her employer in an impossible situation, as her face has been all over social media it could have made patients feel uncomfortable and not wanting her to nurse them.

twinnytwin

She was working for a private healthcare company who's handbook states that no employees should appear on tv. She broke the rules unfortunately. It wasn't simply for her political views. She's been on another tv show in the past ranting against the Tories evidently.

That puts a different light on her sacking, thank you twinnytwin

Sparklefizz

You can't have doctors and nurses picking and choosing who they will treat, or ambulance drivers choosing who they will pick up, or teachers choosing who they will teach......

......unless they work for private healthcare or education.

(Oh, I can't help myself some days...)

twinnytwin thank you for that information. I withdraw the categoric 'no' I posted earlier.

She knew the rules, she broke them, she knew how she would be sanctioned. She has been.

So, how about the doctors and nurses who made the videos of themselves singing and dancing during the worst of covid?

Did they break any rules?

twinnytwin

She was working for a private healthcare company who's handbook states that no employees should appear on tv. She broke the rules unfortunately. It wasn't simply for her political views. She's been on another tv show in the past ranting against the Tories evidently.

Thank you for this information
Context is everything.

In the interests of context, it should be noted that she said that those who voted Tory had no right to be resuscitated, as they had voted for the cuts to the NHS that had led to the situation we are in (or maybe were in during Covid - I can't remember). When asked she said that of course she wouldn't refuse to resuscitate anyone. She was talking theoretically, and wasn't deciding which patients she would treat - she made that quite clear.

I'm not sure what I think about an employer dictating whether employees can appear on TV. Bringing a company into disrepute is one thing - going on Pointless, or expressing a general opinion on something like Jeremy Vine is another (and she didn't give the name of her employer).

In the interests of context, it should be noted that she said that those who voted Tory had no right to be resuscitated,

Actually, this is in the interests of accurate reporting.

The context is that she said something vile on TV which embarassed her employers. I think I'd expect to be sacked in similar curcumstances whether I was expressing a view against Tory voters, Labour voters or any other kind of voter.

Whatever it is in the interests of doing, it is not the same thing as saying that she wouldn't resuscitate a patient! That was a gross misrepresentation of what happened, and gives it an entirely different meaning.

How were her employers embarrassed? Unless I've misremembered, she didn't say who they were, just that she used to work in the NHS but now worked in the private sector.

How were her employers embarrassed?

Who knows? But if I were an employer I'd be embarassed by an employee who said vicious things like that. It is a peculiar thing for a supposedly caring person to say. Letting visceral feelings about people whose politics differ from one's own get to you that much is really quite worrying. I would say the same thing from whichever political direction the hate speech came.

When I said I'd expect to be sacked I did not mean that the woman in question should have been sacked. She should learn to curb her tongue though, maybe by getting some help with her anger issues.

To be fair, I think resuscitation is over-rated anyway but that's a separate issue.

I agree that it was a very strongly-expressed opinion, and as I said, I don't know how I feel about employers dictating what people can say. Apart from the free speech issues, it stops whistleblowers and means that those who don't work have more freedom than those who do.

My point wasn't about that, but about the way the situation has been represented on here - that she said she wouldn't resuscitate and then that her employers had been embarrassed.

If she'd said that she worked for Private Medicine Inc, and that she wouldn't resuscitate Tory patients it would be one thing, as obviously they would choose to go elsewhere for their private medicine, but that is not what happened.

I wonder if she'll appeal or sue for wrongful dismissal? Her employers would risk embarrassment then, as they'd almost certainly be named.

I pretty much agree with all you've said here, doodle.

Not sure hating Tories is a poltical belief though; I think of it rather as a kind of incontinence of feeling. And expressing it is definitely incontinent though, of course, she is free to say it.

I agree with her employer, this is not a sentiment that should be expressed by a member of the nursing profession.

Sorry to pick, but she didn't say she hated Tories. She said that they were responsible for the state of the NHS (by voting for them) so should give way to those who didn't when it came to rationed treatment like resuscitation. That is a political belief.

I'm not saying I agree, (although I do rather resent the fact that things needn't have been like this), but again, saying that she said she hated Tories is a misrepresentation.

Also, it was a political show (albeit a pretty dire vox-pop one), so expressing political view is what she was there for.

Oh, and as it was Jeremy Vine, who likes his own voice so much that guests never get a chance to expand on a point, she was only given time for a soundbite.

She is a nurse, God help us if she is an example of a caring
profession

Anniebach

She is a nurse, God help us if she is an example of a caring
profession

The RCN would have more right to sack her, if what she said contravenes their professional standards, but as she did not say that she wouldn't resuscitate I doubt they's have a leg to stand on either.

I think a good deal of NHS probs are a hangover from the pandemic and wastefulness before it. I work in an NHS building (though am not employed by NHS) and the waste of resources is sometimes often quite shocking. I think that has happened for too long.

How to solve it is the issue.

She's been on another tv show in the past ranting against the Tories evidently.

But she works worked in the private health sector.

Is this hypocritical or not? ?