Muslim medical students refuse sanitation measure on religious grounds

Pharyngula writes on Scienceblogs:

So…Muslims want special foot washing stations so they can tidy up in order to pray, but at the same time, Muslim doctors don’t want to have to wash their arms before they plunge them into my guts. “No practising Muslim woman — doctor, medical student, nurse or patient — should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow,” they say.

What is wrong with this picture?  As much as I think Pharyngula is linking to un-connected news items to give it a sensational touch – what is perplexing is the second piece.  A lady doctor feels that she is being immodest by exposing her arm to wash her arm before a surgery!  If the discussion of modesty and immodesty and of shame and otherwise has to be taken to a sterile environment of an operation theater – then maybe such a person should not become a doctor.  Or maybe stay confined to a madrasa Unani dawakhaana.  Some females refused to roll up their sleeves in a children’s hospital to wear the gown because of the same reason.  A children’s hospital?

Documents from Birmingham University reveal that some students would prefer to quit the course rather than expose their arms, and warn that it could leave trusts open to legal action.

Hygiene experts said last night that no exceptions should be made on religious grounds.

Dr Mark Enright, professor of microbiology at Imperial College London, said: “To wash your hands properly, and reduce the risks of MRSA and C.difficile, you have to be able to wash the whole area around the wrist.

“I don’t think it would be right to make an exemption for people on any grounds. The policy of bare below the elbows has to be applied universally.”

No matter how much you cover the body, the voyeur lives in the mind.  That mind can feel tickled and see eroticism in every thing.  Clothing does not change it.  It is very important to take responsibility for our own actions.  To dress to be responsible for someone’s actions is taking things too far.  If you want to dress in a certain way, you must do it because you want to do it that way.  To do it because it will stave others off is going into a spiral.

Arabs follow the hijab and naqab system the most.  Yet, most of us South Asians know – Arab men are the most regular visitors to South Asia and South East Asia in search for prostitutes and for illegal sex.  Everyone knows it.  Even this Iranian who owns the limo company which I use told me the same thing.  Well, it is easy to see what is the cause of the stricture.  A sick mind of that populace who want to target the “other one” in order to feel and look “holy” themselves!