The United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) announced Tuesday that, under new rules for the agency coming in April, medical care providers can refuse to give non-critical care to patients who are “racist,” sexist,” “homophobic,” or are otherwise insulting and aggressive towards hospital staff.
Right now, the NHS can refuse to treat anyone who are “aggressive” or “violent” out of concern for the well-being of health care workers, but the new rules, set to take effect in April of 2020, expand who the NHS can turn away — though it’s not entirely clear how the NHS would know a possible patient was “racist,” sexist,” or “homophobic,” or whether there are procedures in place to separate the truly mentally ill from the merely problematic.
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