Nurse awaits ruling in crucifix ban case, while Muslim women can wear the government fitted burqa

The new inclusion means publicly excluding everything Christian and allowing all things Muslim. In the British National Health Service a woman can wear a burqa against WHO regulations that require faces to be shown, but after 30 years of service nurse Chaplin no longer wear her Christian cross.

The absolute joke about inclusion is that it is not inclusive. The same thing is happen in Holland ~ a Coptic railway employee cannot wear his cross after all the years of wearing it ~ but the Muslim women can wear her headscarf. It is clear no one is going to be bombed or receive threats from an overseas militant website if hospital staff are not allowed to wear the cross. Everyone criticizes France ~ for its headscarf ban but it was a blanket ban. Unlike in the UK and in Holland where priority is given to the Islamic belief.

A CHRISTIAN nurse from Devon who was banned by hospital bosses from showing a crucifix necklace is expected to learn today if she has won her claim for discrimination at an employment tribunal.

Grandmother Shirley Chaplin, 54, took action against bosses at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital after they told her to either hide or remove it because they classed it as jewellery.

They insisted that the crucifix breached health and safety rules because it could scratch patients or injure Mrs Chaplin if it was grabbed.

Ward sister Mrs Chaplin, from Exeter, refused, arguing that the crucifix was essential to her Christian beliefs.

The hearing at Exeter finished last week and the tribunal's judgment is expected today.


Mrs Chaplin – who has worn the inch-long crucifix since she was 16 – said: "I feel personally discriminated against, and I am very angry.

"I have worn my cross for 38 years and it has never harmed anybody.

"If I am forced to hide it, I feel I am denying my Christian convictions.

"I feel torn between my two vocations – my faith and my job.

"I have respect for Islam as a faith and I admire Muslims for sticking to their views, but they do not seem to face the same rigorous application of NHS rules.

"Not only are they allowed to wear headscarves in the wards but other, non-religious staff wear jewellery and have not been challenged.

"I believe much of the discrimination against me has been handed down from on high, from central Government.

"They have brought in all these diversity policies so as not to offend anyone.

"But they don't mind offending me."

Mrs Chaplin, a member of the Church of England, told the Mail on Sunday that she did not force her faith on anyone.

She said: "I don't push my faith in people's faces.

"I don't go round quoting passages from the Bible.

"I am a very private person."

Her cross and chain was a present from her family to mark her confirmation service at St Mary's, her parents' parish church in Bishops Lydeard, near Taunton.

Mrs Chaplin is adamant that most of her patients are reassured by her crucifix.

The saga began last June when hospital bosses told her the cross hanging around her neck posed a risk to patients and a series of meetings with managers followed.

The Royal College of Nursing told Mrs Chaplin the union could not support her case as it had agreed the uniform policy with health chiefs.

She said: "It's now so difficult to stand up and be a Christian.

"It is almost becoming an underground religion because people are so frightened to display their faith.

"The whole landscape seems to have shifted over the past few years.

"I'm amazed at the situation I'm in after 30 years of nursing. It's as though, suddenly, it doesn't count.

"Nothing I have done has changed. I've worn my cross all that time.

"The idea that necklaces are banned in practice is just ridiculous.

"Staff wear them all the time, though perhaps not at the moment while my case is high-profile.

"The policy is being enforced much more vigorously than it has in the past.

"Besides, as I keep trying to explain to the trust, my cross isn't a necklace. It's a personal manifestation of faith.

"I don't particularly like jewellery.

"I don't even wear make-up.

"If I honestly thought I was going to do harm to my patients by wearing it, I would look for a different job."

After another meeting last September, Mrs Chaplin said she realised that if she did not accept redeployment to a non-clinical role, then she would be sacked.

She said she accepted the role under protest.

Further meetings were held in October and in January this year.

By the second of these, she had started work as an admissions/discharge co-ordinator but was still fighting to get her old job back.

On the opening day of the case last Monday, the trust's human resources director Lynn Lane said in a statement: "We are very disappointed that this matter could not have been resolved before now.

"For the trust, this has always been about compliance with our agreed uniform policy and the safety of staff and patients."

Mrs Chaplin said: "In an ideal world, I'd like the tribunal to say I can go back on to my ward, wearing my cross and caring for my patients as I have always done.

"If I lose, then it will be a sad day for all Christians and freedom generally.

"I feel so frustrated that it has come to this, when there is so much else the NHS needs to address, such as the problems with failing trusts.

"I don't use the word crucified lightly.

"But, in one sense, I have been crucified by the system."

This western morning news