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Racial discrimination against Asian doctors in London

     London: The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) in London has revealed that black and Asian doctors working in NHS, the UK's health department, are the worst sufferers of racial discrimination, inasmuch as they are not awarded due promotions despite their high levels of experience and education. "If I were to consider what group of people are most likely to feel that they have suffered disrespect, slights and racial disadvantage, the traditional view would be that it would be poor, black people who don't get jobs. It isn't. It's doctors, senior minority doctors who are just below the level of consultant and we get shoals of complaints," The Independent quoted CRE official, Phillips, as saying. Many of the discrimination cases concerned black and Asian doctors who had been excluded from the "club" of consultants, he said adding that the CRE was investigating hundreds of complaints of racism in the higher echelons of the NHS. He added that the investigations could lead to a full commission inquiry into the treatment of ethnic minorities working in Britain's leading hospitals. The racism that minority doctors experienced was not overt or direct discrimination, he said adding "they're being discriminated against not because somebody's walking down the hospital corridor and saying, 'excuse me, Dr Patel, would you shine my shoes', but because they don't belong to the consultants' club. The grade (called an SAS grade) just below consultant is absolutely stuffed with minority doctors. And, they're just stuck there. That's not because they're uneducated, not because they're poor, but because they are black and Asian. And what is the reason? Not because they are poor, these guys are earning money but they can't break through into consultants' ranks. And, if you look at the numbers, it is unmistakable."

    According to Philips, the Commission was "studying what's going on with indirect discrimination" in the NHS before deciding what action to take. He also warned that the UK's race legislation was failing black and Asian doctors because it was too blunt. "The judgements are ... fine and subtle and sometimes there'll be one that will stand up in court as a discrimination case. Most of them won't because the law is too clumsy an instrument." The commission's concerns had been triggered by a series of complaints brought by black and Asian officers, which drew the watchdog's attention to problems of racism in the police. "Most of them were not cases that were so gross or `black and white' we could say `OK we will go to tribunal and win them on that one'. But, there was a clear pattern of disrespect, of slight exclusion, of not being one of the boys, that made us think maybe we can't deal with this on one or two individual cases," said the CRE.