The human spirit and spiritual health is fundamental to healing and wholeness. So every health professional, every doctor, every nurse needs to be easy and familiar with the language of the spirit in order to express the almost inexpressible.
Nurse Petrie, suspended for praying for a patient.
These are the words of the Very Rev John Hall, the Dean of Westminster, who complained this week that believers were increasingly being forced to keep their faith to themselves.
Hall remarks were made this week at an annual Florence Nightingale service at Westminster Abbey, attended by almost 2,000 nurses.
In his sermon, according to the Telegraph, he criticised the decision to suspend a nurse who offered to pray for an elderly patient, and said:
Offering to pray for someone is not a sin and should not be regarded as an offence.
A decision to suspend Mrs Petrie, 45, sparked a national debate on the role of Christianity in public life. Last year, a British Airways check-in worker who was banned from wearing a cross around her neck lost her claim of religious discrimination.
Hall said:
Human beings are not body and mind alone, but body, mind and spirit … Spiritual care and spiritual healing are therefore fundamental to the work of doctors, nurses and all health professionals.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
May 16th, 2009 at 8:42 am
The guy is a nutter and by simply uttering these words, he shows a complete lack of knowledge when it comes to neuroscience. I'm no doctor or scientist, but I have read enough scientific papers to have a better understanding of consciousness (or spirit as he puts it) than he does. By saying this, he should automatically be excluded from any governing process of the NHS,or anything else for that matter.
As for the woman who got suspended for praying for a patient. To paraphrase Daniel Dennett; did she also sacrifice a goat?
May 16th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Quote: “believers were increasingly being forced to keep their faith to themselves”. Er isn’t that exactly what the fundies want us Freethinkers to do – keep our non-belief to ourselves? Pot – kettle – black. If you are paid to do a job you get on and do it, not whinge about your job upsetting your infantile beliefs.
I’m still boiling with rage over that Nurse Petrie being reinstated at Weston-super-mare hospital and the money the NHS wastes on other quackery, rather than healing the sick. My mother [who was a Sister and Matron there for most of her working life] has finally come home after two months stay there for a broken hip. My mother has alzheimer’s, that due to inadequate treatment while she was an inpatient has rapidly worsened. You would not treat a sick animal the way in which my mum and other dementia patients are treated in hospital. The god squad like to steal cash from the NHS to practise their mumbo-jumbo and let people suffer.
Sorry for the off topic rant.
May 16th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
If I was seriously ill and my nurse felt the need to pray for me I think it would make me feel as if the had lost all hope of my recovery I think it would make things worse and that’s before you consider the diverting of funds.
Rant aside – barry good blog and bonus points for the use of the word tosh,
May 16th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Now that the movie Angels and Demons has opened, my review of the book can be accessed directly at http://www.freethoughtperspective.net
May 16th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
If I need surgery, the nit is welcome to prey for what ever they see in there.
You can't slam them too much, having been there I know they are programmed from day one to do such useless activity. They really believe this is helpful and supportive. If she was doing a good job as a nurse then firing her is a bit extreme. But being fired points to more wrong then just a prayer.
May 16th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Can witch doctors come in and dance for the patients as well (fully compensated of course) ? If not that's religious discrimination.
BTW, the NHS might want to remember the numerous studies that show prayer is not only ineffective but actually detrimental to the health of patients.
May 17th, 2009 at 6:55 am
I am just a little wary about the way our society is moving towards having rules to cover absolutely everything. Yes, she is a silly cow and yes there may be a possibility that she would abuse her position by foisting her tripe on helpless patients who couldn't get away. But suspending her seems to me to be a wasteful overreaction, surely she should have been taken aside for a quiet word that her workplace was not the appropriate place and that if she wanted to pray she should be doing it at home. I do of course realise that there is a chance that at this point she would have come over all victimised and wanted to sue the hospital etc. but I think the heavy handedness was unneccessary and only played into the religiot's hands. All of you feel free to violently disagree and give me a flaming.
May 17th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
You`re tempting fate with that question, Buffy!
May 17th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
I agree with Stonyground here again (yawn!), but others seem to as well. This looks very much like another heavy-handed overreaction by petty-minded jobsworths (who are multiplying at an alarming rate in our increasingly bureaucratic, restrictive and litigious society), and is, indeed, just playing into the hands of these "poor, persecuted" god botherers. Who on earth said that it was "an offence" for her to pray anyway? What a load of cobblers!!
May 17th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Do you mean "The Nit Nurse" CybrgnX?
May 17th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Sorry folks this is the best I can come up with.
Nurse Petrie – she's a bit of a dish!!
May 18th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
It made me laugh when I read the guidelines for comments on the Samizdata website that one of the prohibited acts was posting and then coming back using a different name to agree with yourself. Barriejohn if you keep coming on to agree with me it might look as if thats what I've been doing, just a thought. Although I think that there can be no doubt that our general agreements are genuine as earlier we both came up with the exact same Bible quote to make our point, the new vetting system having kept each of us from knowing what the other was up to.
May 18th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
I absolutely disagree with your comments Stonyground! What a load of rubbish! How have you got the nerve to come on this site spouting such obvious drivel! Please desist from wasting our time reading this ill-informed nonsense! (Will that do for now?)