It is terrible the mother died, however, I´m far from accusing Norway of racism. I understand that in a stressful situation it´s easy to blame everything on racism, but let´s be fair and wonder if that´s really the case.

As far as i know there are procedures all public services have to stick to, aren´t there? You may dislike the fact that a question of nationality is asked in an emergency situation, Vineyards, but there must be a reason or precedence to it. In Ireland, when you go to A&E, you´re asked what your religion is, and that´s regardless of your ethnicity. Don´t forget that people in the emergency services are just workers, not gods. They base their actions on the spoken report of the caller. If the caller´s language is bad, it´s pretty hard to blame them for not taking the right course of action. As for the police, Les said it´s a standard procedure when dealing with aggression. Again, hard to blame paramedics for wanting to be protected and safe.

It is saddening that incidents like that happen. But they don´t happen to foreigners only, how often do we hear about ambulance not being sent somewhere because the dispatcher made a wrong assumption or misjudged the situation?

And you still think we must stick to existing procedures rather than improving them or blaming them when they give way to disasters like this...

Correct me if I am wrong but I don´t remember talking about racism explicitly. Racism must be much more comprehensive than this. It must involve things like deliberate denial of service etc. In this case, we are talking about stereotypes and their consequences. I also made a reference to the anti-Islamic sentiment in Europe. There is a more general picture of Europe in my mind and racistic attitudes find a place in it but this would be another discussion. It can hardly be seen in political statements, laws and regulations. Instead, what I am talking about is merely an attitude and it is a part of the European lore. Similar attitudes exist in many other countries including our own. Whereas ours is -though rarer- mostly blatantly expressed, brutally exercised acts of crime, the European attitude is more undercover and tactful which also makes it more effective.

My very childish first respons to this was ...plfffff

But since I want to sound adult, let me explain. The article that you linked was clearly written with the purpose of pointing out a racist act, even though they distorted the event. So ofcourse people talk about racism, after reading this article. This was my main point of critique to this article.

Second of all, Europe is not a single country! How can people keep talking about events in Europe, as if it´s one big blob?

And I have seen a lot of racism and stereotypes in Turkey as well. No, they did not involve violence. Since people can not see my cultural background from my looks, they sometimes share their distorted views with me, without realising that the stereotype they are talking about IS me. I have met the same kind of stereotypes and the same style of stereotyping (hidden and sneeky) in both Turkey, as well as Holland.

im your fan!

I was just trying to show the reason behind sending the police there. I´m far from judging the rules as good or bad. My point was that they were not made up for nothing. Procedures are always based on what had happened before. If a caller sounds aggressive police gets there to see if it´s safe for paramedics to come there and I assume it´s regardless of the caller´s ethnic origin. The questions asked by the dispatcher must have a logical explanation too. I suppose our friends with medical background could shed more light on it.

I don´t like the way you´re comparing anti-Islamic and anti-European attitudes without acknowledging the difference in the amount of foreigners on both sides of the barricade. Like it or not, the number of Muslims in the west is greatly bigger than the number of westerners in the east. It could be an idea to compare the number of people not given proper emergency care in Norway. I wonder if the percentage of Norwegians who died in result of bad emergency care is significantly lower than the one of Muslims. And only if it is can you point out the anti-Islamic sentiment in healthcare.

+10000

I know that someone will not accept the realities altough these realities are plain as a pikestaff.

Explaining the background of emergency services´ processes can just be the approach of a politician or davil´s advocate but not a single person who criticises the events in justice and just wishes the world to be a more peaceful place. All these processes are being established to improve the quality of individuals´ lifes regardless with their religions, ethnicity, language, colour of skin or gender choices. And in that case the system is complately failed. The reason of this failure is subsconscious of people in the west which is canalized by the mass media: "Muslim´s are dengeraous."
After the cold war ends the U.S needed a new reason for conflicts. And it seems they succeed on this lie.
Whoever do not blame that event helps the aims of these bloody people.

This event is not a unique event. It is unfortunately very easy to order lots of events in a row happened in all Europe. I will not order those now. I will remain that to fair peoples´ memories.

The thing i want to say is; ethnocentreism is tragicly improving in all Europe. Residents of Europe shall say stop to that by an effectful public opinion. Otherwise all we will lose... Let me remember you that an important politicians sentence about Nazismus. "Nazismus was a huge matter as much as we could not talk about it." Please dont let the Europe to have a fascist era again and stop racism against Muslims.

Last sentence; if a case like that happens in Turkey i am sure i would be the first one who blame that event by using all my possibilities. I know that most of Turkish people are like me.

That´s an unfair generalisation, Oeince. Like I said before, the data about religion or ethnicity are collected for a purpose, not only for statistics. I did some Googling and found a few reasons behind this "invasion of privacy".

First of all there´s a matter of language. Most European countries are obligued to provide a patient with free interpreter service to ensure no medically important information is lost due to poor language skills. As it is impossible to have interpreters of all languages residing at hospitals 24/7, they are usually given a call from the hospital should their presence be required. If a person with poor language skills calls the er, I assume they ask about the nationality in order to be able to summon the interpreter as quickly as possible.

Also, some diseases are more likely to occur within certain ethnic groups, which also provides reason for asking about ethnicity.

Then, religion is a big deal to some people and knowing the religion, health services can provide you with the care you might expect from them (ie Jehova Witnesses do not accept blood transfusions, some Muslims might not want to be examined by a doctor of opposite sex etc). It is also to provide you with religious service should you need one (ie Catholic priest for confession).

And I´ve already written about sending police to aggressive sounding callers.

Where´s racism in it? Or where´s discrimination of Muslims?

As far as I know it is not standard procedure for services in Holland to ask about your religion or ethnicity. To be 100% sure I´ll check later with one of my friends who is a doctor (so more info will follow). Only when you are admitted to the hospital they ask about your religion for food purposes, and to make sure no products are used that you might not want. (A lot of pig-products are used in medical care, because of the animal´s similarity to humans...no joke I guess giving a Muslim or Jew a part of a pig in their heart wouldn´t be very halal or kosjer)

But, since Europe is Europe, and not several countries, I must be wrong, right? Since every European country is the same, works the same, and has the same rules and procedures.

Update... my doctor friend is currently too busy to talk (busy saving lives or something... pffff)

But I have asked my non-ethnic Dutch, very Muslim, but not Turkish friend about her experiences in Holland with doctors and other services in Holland, and the experiences of her family. And no point has she been asked about either her ethnicity or her religion. In her opinion, she thinks asking about ethnicity is not very usefull, and if you go to a hospital it would be better if they would ask about your religion (since there are Christians from Iraq and Muslim from India, etc.) But the only thing that her family has been asked related to religion when they went to a hospital, is if they had special diet wishes (the exact same question was asked to my very Dutch grandpa) and if there were other wishes that they had to take into account.

So THERE! Europe is made out of Norway and Holland, to different countries with different regulations...perhaps I´ll discover more European countries soon!

Just got a hold of my doctor friend. He told me that it is NOT ALLOWED for medical services in Holland to ask about ethnicity or religion in this way. So no way that if you call for an ambulance, anybody would ask you "but what are you exactly?"

are you saying that mass media created all all that? so bombings, terror acts, murder of journalists who dared to criticize "the religion of peace" are made up by media and such dont happen?

well.... i think we are all fed up by these justifications.