Saturday 9 August 2014

Quarantine & Infection Control: Now ‘Racist’

Lola Okolosie finds racism in just about anything:
Like Sars and swine flu before it, Ebola has gripped the national imagination. I was made all too aware of this last week on my return to London from a holiday in Nigeria. I’m now two thirds of the way through my second pregnancy, and was due to have a routine midwife’s appointment the day after my flight landed at Heathrow. The only problem was that my midwives refused to see me.
Quite rightly as it turned out:
They took this precaution as a result of two factors – my poorly toddler, who had a slight temperature, and heavy news coverage of the Ebola outbreak in west Africa.
With those clinical symptoms & routing, they were right to be cautious. As even you have to agree:
Faced with the possibility of Ebola, my midwife was overly cautious. It’s a reaction I can understand, so I’m not inclined to judge or diminish it
Just to make sure you get a column out of it?
Media coverage of the outbreak, however, doesn’t deserve the same reticence. In the press, communities dealing with the virus have been presented as irrationally suspicious of western medicine. The suggestion has been that they are, like the continent they live on, their own worst enemies.
Well, yes. That’s merely pointing out a fact.
The fact that remote west African communities may view medics with suspicion is therefore understandable. Fear and mistrust of western institutions might also be explicable in the context of a history of exploitation by multinationals and colonial governments alike.
Oh, ffs! Look, if they are hung up on the past to the point they won’t co-operate with attempts to fight a deadly filovirus outbreak, then to hell with ‘em!
Arguing that too much immigration “threatens” the stability of our fragile society, we allow “them” in at our peril. It’s not surprising then that the spotlight on Ebola has begun to stir latent anti-immigration sentiments.
*yawns* Sweetie, the inscription reads ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…’, not ‘Give me your infectious, your doomed, your hidden dormant viruses yearning to replicate…’

Whinge all you want, we’ll rely on quarantine and travel bans rather than import an even worse problem than drug-resistant TB, congenital abnormalities, unsanitary practices and rickets, thanks very much.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm only surprised it took so long for some whinging twat to mention 'waycism'. 'Holiday in Nigeria'?????

I once spoke to a medic at QE Hospital, Woolwich who said they have revolving doors from West Africa into that hospital and others in London, back then the HIV/AIDS budget was trashed due to West African health tourists being brought over by 'Auntie' or 'Uncle'

TB is rife in Tower Hamlets and other centres of enrichment.

Calais is full of Somali/Eritrean locusts - and our government does nothing

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX
Calais is full of Somali/Eritrean locusts - and our government does nothing XX

Hmm. As most of them seem to enter France through Italy, and a lesser extent, Spain, surely the question should be "What are the wops doing about it?"

Anonymous said...

FT we know the wops are doing sweet FA the Calais mayor continually makes ref as to why the whole of the third world wants to come so what the fuck is my govt doing? Still the failure that is baroness warsi wouldn't mind them all coming whilst squealing WAYCISM after her so called sacking. Still she can get £350 a day if she can be arsed to sign in at the HOL. SLAAAAAAAAG

Robert the Biker said...

Eats rabid bats and chimps cos 'bushmeat' be culyural innit.
Knobs monkeys cos you is wayyycisss for noticing yo.
Comes up with incurable viral disease that decimates populations, check.
Shrieks about it when someone in a civilised country takes notice and wants to keep her out; well, dont carry a virus that could easily kill millions if let loose here. The fact that you and your baboon bretheren would be the first to go is small comfort.

Furor Teutonicus said...

Robert the Biker said...

Don't forget;

Goes into hysterical fits of rage when we do not help, screaming "Waycism!!!"

Goes into hysterical fits of rage, and starts screaming "Waycist white imperial bastards!" at the top of her voice, when we DO try and help.

JuliaM said...

"...back then the HIV/AIDS budget was trashed due to West African health tourists being brought over by 'Auntie' or 'Uncle'"

But we'll consider fining drunks who take up time in A&E...

" As most of them seem to enter France through Italy, and a lesser extent, Spain, surely the question should be "What are the wops doing about it?""

Good point. Isn't this just the situation that requires the original purpose of the EU to come into play?

"Eats rabid bats and chimps cos 'bushmeat' be culyural innit."

And, if you can believe some of the stories, not unknown here!

"Goes into hysterical fits of rage, and starts screaming "Waycist white imperial bastards!" at the top of her voice, when we DO try and help."

We can't win. Maybe we shouldn't try?