A tribunal has ordered a medical diagnostic clinic to pay compensation totalling €12,000 to a south Dublin GP and her elderly mother over the “demeaning and disrespectful” conduct of a receptionist nearly three years ago.
It follows complaints under the Employment Equality Act 1998 against Affidea Diagnostics Ireland Ltd by Dr Shereen Gul and her mother, Mehr Un Nisa.
In decisions published on Tuesday, a Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) adjudicator recorded that Mehr Un Nisa was “a 75-year-old Pakistani lady who was visibly timid and frail” with “no English to speak of”.
She was in Ireland visiting her daughter, a general practitioner in Saggart in Dublin, when went for a scan at an Affidea radiography clinic in Dundrum, the WRC heard.
There was “anxiety” on both sides after a mix-up about slotting Mehr Un Nisa in for a cancelled appointment the previous month led to a disputed interaction and the accusation that Gul gave “abuse” to clinic staff.
This was strongly denied by Gul, who had initiated defamation proceedings against Affidea when the WRC was hearing the case.
Gul said her mother was from a village in a tribal area in northern Pakistan where people traditionally use just one name.
On November 4th, she said, a receptionist, Karen Fitzpatrick, on seeing the name said: “Oh, what kind of a name is that and what is the surname?” Gul said.
She went on to say twice that the name “doesn’t make sense” when Gul tried to explain, and asked Gul to produce an identity document for her mother, the witness added.
Fitzpatrick then asked Gul: “Does your mom know any English?” and when told Mehr Un Nisa had only a few words, asked, “How come she has no English?” Gul said.
She was then told she couldn’t enter a changing area to assist her mother for “infection control” reasons. She had been let in on previous visits, and saw other patients enter with family members while she waited, she said.
The receptionist, Fitzpatrick, denied telling Gul that her mother’s name “didn’t make sense” but said she “needed to check the spelling”. She asked about English because there was a safety questionnaire to fill out, she added.
When counsel for the complainant Vincent Nolan, appearing instructed by Powderly Solicitors, put it to the witness that there she had “simply decided to be awkward”, Fitzpatrick said: “No, I was just doing my job correctly.”
Adjudicator Patricia Owens decided Fitzpatrick’s evidence was not credible and decided in favour of Gul’s account of the questioning about Mehr Un Nisa’s name.
Fitzpatrick was “demeaning and disrespectful” towards the women and went beyond what was required to identify her, Owens wrote. The receptionist’s actions were “notably different to how Irish patients were treated”, the adjudicator added.
Refusing to let Gul into the changing area was discriminatory on the same basis, she added.