Utrecht: Doctor turns away burqa-wearing woman (UPDATE)

Utrecht: Doctor turns away burqa-wearing woman

Update: The mother in question described the incident on a Moroccan Dutch forum (NL, via GeenStijl). The woman, who wears a niqab, was accompanied by her husband, who held their three month old baby. When they were called in to the see the doctor, the doctor told the father that only he could go in with the baby. When she insisted that she should enter as the baby's mother, the doctor replied that he doesn't want anybody wearing a burka helping or entering his consultation room. When her husband asked why, the doctor answered that it was because of religious convictions and that he absolutely didn't want the services of anybody with a burka. The doctor refused to give his name, and so the woman returned to the reception to get his name. When she returned she was told that another doctor would see them. The doctor who first refused them then showed up and apologized.


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A 23 year old mother with a burka to the disciplinary tribunal because she was turned away by a family doctor on Christmas Day. The Utrecht woman is upset and also lodged a complaint by the Equal Treatment Commission, reports AD.

According to the Muslim woman, who went to the clinic with her sick son, the doctor didn't want to help her because she wore a burqa. The doctor later said that he acted this way because he was run down.

The woman is nethertheless upset and turned to the disciplinary tribunal. The clinic regrets the incidents and is investigating exactly what happened.

The woman told AD she felt humiliated, pound into the ground and distressed. "I simply can't believe that somebody would turn me away for my external appearance," she said.

Source: Elsevier (Dutch)

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