Filipino Nurses Protest outside the "racist" Daily Mail

Over 250 Filipino NHS nurses protested today outside the Headquarters of the right wing tabloid newspaper, The Daily Mail. They were demanding an apology from the Mail for racially stereotyping all Filipino nurses as potential "murderers", following the conviction of Philippine born Victorino Chua.

It is pretty clear that Victorino Chua is a duplicitous psychopath. However, so was the serial child killer nurse, Beverley Allitt and the mass murderer, Doctor Harold Shipman. I don't recall any calls at the time they were convicted to ban all english born medical professionals. If there is fraud in any medical recruitment this needs to be dealt with but don't tar everyone with the same brush.

Filipino nurses due to their caring and medical skills are in great demand all over the world. In the UK we are short of 20,000 nurses. UNISON estimates by directly employing Filipino nurses saves the NHS £300 million per year in agency nursing fees.

I suspect that nearly all of us have been treated (gratefully) at a hospital by a Filipino nurse at one time or another. I know I have. To slur all of them with the actions of one is simply a disgrace and if the Daily Mail had any real journalistic values - it should apologise.

UPDATE:
This is the statement handed in to the Daily Mail yesterday by protesters.

"Solidarity gathering supporting UK Filipino Health Workers

Following the recent conviction and sentencing of Nurse Victoriano Chua for murdering 2 patients and poisoning 18 others, the Daily Mail published several references to him being Filipino.

We believed that the nationality of the perpetrator of these wicked crimes should be irrelevant. We would accept a reference to Chua being of Filipino ethnicity within the body of the story, however the Daily Mail refereed to Chua as a ' Filipino serial killer' in the title of the news article is uncalled for.

The other headline story which is causing offence and indeed difficulties for Filipino nurses is 'Why are the NHS still hiring Filipino nurses?'

We believe that one person’s mistake doesn’t reflect everyone.

We consider the article by Daily Mail questioning the credibility of Filipino Nurses, including all working Filipinos in the UK, malicious and degrading. Filipino nurses have undergone four years of tedious study, community and clinical based experiences and need to pass a gruelling board examination before they can be called Registered Nurse.

What happened was a tragedy and safety measures have to be implemented to stop it from happening again however, scaremongering and targeting a specific group of people is not helping.

The Daily Mail should be shamed of its biased, partial reporting that is inciting racial hatred which we believe is a crime in the United Kingdom.

These are the reasons for our protest, we demand an apology and for the Daily Mail to highlight the outstanding contribution Filipino health care workers make to the United Kingdom.

Finally, on behalf of the organising committee, in one with the overwhelming majority of Filipinos throughout the United Kingdom and indeed the world, we would like to say how truly sorry we are about the shocking crimes committed by Chua and we send our deepest condolences and prayers to the families of the victims.

Organisers

Malcolm Conlan

Araial Ilustre

Ric Patriarca

Tara Tiyagarajan

Vannz Bio

Glenda Salazar Taylor

Phoebe Dimacali

Rommel C. Abellar

SIGNED

Saturday 30th May 2015"

If you are a home owner then you must of course be a vile mass murderer!

Hat tip to Red Brick for a brilliant post on the nasty, ignorant and bigoted coverage by the Daily Hates over the conviction of Mick Philpot for the manslaughter of his 6 children.

Now don't get me wrong Philpot and his accomplices are completely evil scum bags who need to be locked up for life but just because he and his family were on welfare does not mean that everyone who claims benefits are somehow potential mass murderers?

Dr Harold Shipman was a respectable GP, higher rate taxpayer and homeowner.

His housing tenure and source of income had nothing to do with his intent to mass murder 218 patients.

Sunday Sectarianism: Let GP's Run our NHS!

Hat-tip thingy to Col. Roi

(My GP is of course wonderful and hopefully does not read blogs)