“The backlash against the veil grew yesterday as it was banned from hospitals. Muslim medical students were barred from wearing it when they talk to hospital patients. The move was ordered to ‘help to aid good communications’ between Muslim medical students, their colleagues and patients. Details of the purge of faceless medics surfaced as the nationwide storm about Islamic veils continued….
“The bar on a full-face veil was ordered at Birmingham University school of medicine. Chiefs decided that Islamic women can cover their faces in lectures and around campus but not in the ‘clinical environments’ of hospital buildings and GPs’ surgeries. Its women Muslim students must show their faces if they are talking to patients in hospital or surgery or if they are in meetings with other medical staff…. Only in the sterile surroundings of an operating theatre can they cover their faces – with regulation surgical masks.”