Forget two-tier policing – we need to talk about two-tier healthcare. Jess Phillips, Labour MP and Home Office minister, has reportedly said she was whizzed through an overcrowded A&E unit on account of her pro-Gaza campaigning. If this is true, it raises some truly troubling questions about the NHS.
‘The doctor who saw me was Palestinian’, and ‘he was sort of like, “I like you. You voted for a ceasefire.”’
It was at an event at the Kiln Theatre in North London that Phillips implied that she received preferential treatment in a publicly funded hospital because of her position on the Palestine question. According to the Daily Mail, she told the audience about a distressing medical episode where her lips turned blue and she couldn’t breathe properly. So she went for urgent treatment at a hospital in Birmingham. It was horrendously overcrowded. ‘I have genuinely seen better facilities, health facilities, in war zones’, she said. No matter – it seems her political stardom and Palestine sympathies got her through faster than the mere mortals who were also awaiting treatment.
‘I got through because of who I am’, she reportedly said. What’s more, ‘the doctor who saw me was Palestinian’, and ‘he was sort of like, “I like you. You voted for a ceasefire.”’ It was because of this, Phillips reportedly said, that ‘I got through quicker.’ Here, she’s referring to her decision in November last year to resign from the shadow front bench in order to defy the party whip and vote for a ceasefire in Gaza.
If what Phillips is saying is true, it is a scandal. A genuine scandal. One that requires urgent clarification from Phillips herself and from the Home Office where she is currently employed.
If a politician was prioritised over ordinary citizens for urgent healthcare, that is outrageous. In an A&E unit, even more so than in society itself, everyone should be treated equally. Need and need alone should be the only basis on which people are prioritised. If there is an NHS hospital in Birmingham that is privileging famous people over little people, then we need to know which hospital it is and what will be done to address its unacceptable behaviour.
As for Phillips herself, she should have refused the preferential treatment. The minute it became clear that she was being elevated for medical attention on the grounds of ‘who I am’, she should have said ‘No’. She should have told the doctors to attend to more pressing cases first. Why didn’t she?
Even worse is the political element. That Phillips was reportedly prioritised for publicly funded healthcare because she supports a ceasefire in Gaza is horrendous. Are doctors now selecting patients on the basis of their fealty to fashionable causes? If it had been an MP who had voted against a ceasefire in Gaza, might he or she have been made to wait longer, possibly to the detriment of his or her health? Is being ‘pro-Palestine’ now a shortcut to life-saving treatment in the NHS?
And how will Phillips’ story make British Jews feel? Many British Jews support Israel. Many support its war against the pogromists of Hamas who murdered more than a thousand Israelis on 7 October last year. Will they now fear discriminatory treatment in certain NHS hospitals?
Might they feel compelled to remove the yellow ribbons many wear to show their support for the Israeli hostages in Gaza? Or even to remove their kippahs or Star of David necklaces lest someone in the hospital interpret such paraphernalia as likely indicators of pro-Israel sentiment?
I can envision a poorly Jewish person visiting an A&E unit in Birmingham and wondering to him or herself: ‘Is this the hospital where you get special treatment for being pro-Gaza? Do I need to tone down my views and my identity in order to avoid being discriminated against?’ The consequences of Phillips’ claims could be dire indeed.
So we need some clarification, and we need it now. What exactly happened with Phillips in that hospital? Has it been made clear to the hospital that it is unacceptable to discriminate on the basis of either fame or ideological beliefs? And what will be done to reassure Jewish citizens in particular that they will suffer no delay whatsoever in the provision of public healthcare because of their pro-Israel views?
This is a very serious matter. I trust – or hope, anyway – that Phillips and the Home Office will treat it as such.
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