Placing 5th in our writing competition, Dr Seema Haider writes about confronting a racist patient early on in her career
Some would call it a sixth sense, but I can almost foresee it before it happens. The atmosphere changes, the tension heightens and there is a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. This is the patient I will never forget. This is the story that left an indelible imprint in my memory – conjuring up the same uncomfortable feelings each time it is told.
I remember him standing in the waiting room. A man in his late 50s whose physical stature alone was intimidating; he was over 6ft tall, overweight, and at least double my size. His image is vividly emblazoned in my mind – bulging eyes, face contorted in rage. Everything about his demeanour was full of hate.
He had a walking stick. Whilst his disability made him vulnerable, here he was, deploying aggression as a tactic to terrify staff. The walking stick in many ways encapsulated the complexity of caring for abusive patients – they require our care, yet when their behaviour threatens our emotional or physical safety, it causes an intense dissonance.
Then finally it happened; the words leaving his mouth like venom:
‘Fuck off back to Syria’ he sneered at my colleague.
This was at the peak of the Syrian war. The news was flooded with images of children in refugee camps, chemical warfare and indiscriminate attacks on human life; a dark stain on humanity. A different kind of moral injury compared to working in the NHS – one that sadly continues to exist to this day.
I felt incandescent with rage. In my 17 years as a doctor, this was the first time I raised my voice at a patient, abruptly walking him out of the surgery. This is no badge of honour. I was a young GP – I now know that I could have escalated a precarious situation, with an unthinkable outcome. The police were called, and he was immediately deregistered. His parting gift to the practice was a broken door, having slammed it on his exit.
I know it sounds strange, but it was almost a sense of relief once the words had been said. For me, the anticipation of it is far worse than the event itself. Had he not said those words, my intuition had already kicked in and I knew where this was heading. Some may have labelled me ‘sensitive’ or suggested I had ‘misread’ the situation. But, this is why overt racism confers emotional safety – it allows minority groups to feel believed instead of gaslighted. Of course, the xenophobic slur of choice was not aimed at myself, nor at my own ethnic group. However, this was irrelevant – it was an attack on us all.
It was the sense of injustice that reverberated so profoundly for me. Simply giving a warning or, worse, condemning the behaviour but taking no further action would have been a sign of complicity. It would have been an unequivocal statement that screamed how the psychological safety of my staff was unimportant. It would have pushed minority groups to the margins, threatening their sense of belonging both in the workplace and wider community.
And what if he needed urgent treatment? I would treat him. Always.
The world has felt dark in recent months. But we cannot forget the mosque workers who went out to deliver food to the far-right racists in Liverpool, or the ‘Nans against Nazis’ protesting across the UK. It is these radical acts of kindness, unity and tolerance that underpin our beautiful multicultural country and the reason why my faith in humanity remains unbroken.
Dr Seema Haider is a GP partner in Havering
