Well we know that the CHRC like Muslims as they hear every case brought to them by Muslims for ‘discrimination’ and we know that the CHRC likes sexual deviancy of all kinds as they destroyed a Canadian plastic surgeon for refusing to give a labiaplasty to man who had a sex change for reasons which actually had to do with the competency of the doctor. So what is the CHRC to do when lesbians take a muslim doctor to task? They must be in special session now on the verge of a melt down. The only solution will likely involve tens of millions of tax payer dollars. Really, check the story on the plastic surgeon. It’s in the too weird to be true category but typical of ‘human rights comissions’
Lesbians a mystery to city MD
Ginette (left) and Andrea Markowski have filed a human rights complaint against a Winnipeg doctor, saying she refused to take them as patients. (PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)
A same-sex couple has filed a human rights complaint against a south Winnipeg doctor, claiming she refused to take them as patients and told them she doesn’t know how to treat lesbians.
Andrea and Ginette Markowski, who recently moved to Winnipeg from Yellowknife, were stunned last week when a family doctor at Lakewood Medical Centre suggested the couple look for another physician since homosexuality violates her religious beliefs.
The legally married couple also claim the doctor said she has no experience treating lesbians.
Andrea Markowski said she and her partner of 18 years made an appointment with Dr. Kamelia Elias after they heard she was accepting new patients. She said Elias started to take the couple’s medical history and asked how long the women had been together — at which point, the doctor told them she’s never treated lesbians before.
Markowski said she asked Elias whether treating a same-sex couple was a problem for her, and alleges Elias said yes.
Elias told the Free Press she has no experience treating lesbians and gays who sometimes have “sexual problems” and other diseases. Elias practised medicine in Egypt before spending four years in Steinbach and said she’s never treated gays or lesbians in her two decades as a physician.
“They get a lot of diseases and infections,” Elias said during a phone interview. “I didn’t refuse to treat them, I said it’s better to find someone who has experience and will take this type of patients. There (are) some doctors who can treat them.”
Shelly Smith, executive director of Rainbow Resource Centre, said lesbians actually have lower rates of sexually transmitted infections, which are more commonly transmitted by men. However, she said gynecological health is still important for women in same-sex relationships and that rates of breast cancer tend to be higher among lesbians since they may not bear children.
The couple has filed a complaint with the Manitoba Human Rights Commission and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba.
“We were so shocked,” Andrea said. “It’s kind of ironic. We came to the big city to get discriminated against.”
Manitoba doctors can accept or refuse a patient based on their current patient load, but can’t discriminate based on race, gender, sexual orientation or anything else enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Dianna Scarth, executive director of the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, would not confirm a complaint had been filed. But she maintained doctors and other health-care providers can’t refuse to treat people based on their sexual orientation under the human rights code.
Andrea said she and Ginette were upset at Elias’s reaction to their sexual orientation and told Elias that she should pursue further education. The couple received an apologetic phone call from a Lakewood Medical Centre director over the weekend, and said the clinic offered to link them with another physician.
“We just decided we don’t feel comfortable going back there,” Markowski said. “They’ve got a pretty serious problem on their hands with this doctor.”
College registrar Bill Pope said the orientation process for international medical graduates has been recently extended from one week to four weeks, to ensure that foreign-trained doctors learn about Canadian culture and codes of conduct.
In some cases, Pope said some physicians have never performed pelvic exams on women, since it’s not allowed in certain cultures.
He said an increasing number of physicians coming to Manitoba are from the Middle East and southeast Asia, where cultural barriers may hinder their understanding of Canadian norms.
“It was becoming clear that we’re getting people from cultures that are very different from (ours), and you can’t blame someone when your culture teaches you one thing, you can’t understand what the expectations are in Canada,” Pope said.
this doctor is not muslim, but an Orthodox chrisitians. Not every egyptian is a muslim.
How do you know? Either way religion really needs to be eliminated at that level of orthodoxy from Canadian culture. Islam is by freaking FAR the worst of them so its a safe guess when you read something like this it’s a Muslim. Frankly, I would prefer a doctor states their prefrences up front rather than the government force a doctor to treat you when they dont want to and you get dangerous at worst and poor at best medical care. So I have no real objection to this doctors decision. I do however think if the doctor is Muslim the HRC will have a real moral dilemma. If the doctor is Christian then its easy for them they will find in favor of the lesbians.
I’m not at all certain I would want a doctor, any doctor, treating me who doesn’t have the basic understanding of a woman’s physiology. Any medical student who has cracked open even the most basic biology book knows that a woman’s body whether she is a lesbian or not, is exactly the same. Duh.
I don’t know whether religion is the focal point of this story or not, but I do know one thing: stupidity seems to be the main crux and a stupid doctor is well, a doctor one would probably want to avoid. If anything positive comes from this case, hopefully it is to issue a test to determine if foreign M.D’s qualifications meet Canadian standards. Also, it is worth mentioning that Canada does not consider homosexuality to be an offence, criminal or otherwise and certainly not grounds to be rejected from medical care. Hard to believe, apparently for some.
Dear Mr. Tepes,
My name is David Black and I work at the World Policy Journal. Our current issue’s coda covers Turkey’s efforts at accession into the EU, and we thought it might be of interest to you given your knowledge of Islamic fundamentalism and the role it plays in this issue.
Please do not hesitate to contact me or Ryan Bradley, managing editor of the Journal, if you have questions, comments, or requests.
Here is the link to the article: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/wopj.2010.27.2.91