Professor calls for separate health services for UK Muslims

Professor Aziz Sheikh has called for the National Health Service to provide separate (privileged?) services for Muslims to take account of their religious requirements. The Professor is of Muslim orientation and has written an article for the British Journal of Medicine, giving reasons for his argument:

Writing in the British Medical Journal, he said the NHS should record patients’ religion as well as their ethnic grouping. “It is absurd that we do not, for example, know the perinatal mortality or smoking prevalence among Muslims,” he said. Male infant circumcision should be available throughout the NHS, he added.

Although some NHS trusts do offer circumcision, most parents are forced into the
poorly regulated private sector, he said.
Aziz Sheikh is conflating two issues here: matters of health provision and providing specialised services for particular communities. Whilst there may be problems amongst Muslim communities in terms of infant mortality and chronic illness, it is unclear why their status as Muslims should predispose them to these.

Indeed, habits of smoking, an inability to speak English in the United Kingdom as an immigrant and living in relative poverty are better indicators for life expectancy and health.

Therefore, these arguments may demonstrate that Muslims suffer from these problems, but that the causes are not specific to Muslims in particular, but are generally prevalent amongst the poor and immigrant communities.

dailytimes