Opinions
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Interested in people’s opinions on this because it doesn’t sit right with me.
I work in a hospital with a lot of international nurses and staff. I completely understand the expectation that English should be spoken in clinical areas around patients for communication and safety reasons.
But we recently got a passive aggressive email from management plus a message in the communication book basically saying staff should only speak English in both the clinical area and the staff room (because other staff feel excluded). I personally am happy to not be speak to anyone during breaks and if people want to have conversations in their own language during their unpaid time it doesn't bother or offend me but seems to upset others which I think is a bit dramatic.
The clinical area part makes sense to me. The staff room part doesn’t. Staff are on unpaid breaks away from patients, so telling people they can’t speak their own language to friends or colleagues feels excessive and potentially discriminatory.
There’s already a lot of passive racism in the hospital that I hear regularly which really angers me. So things like this don’t exactly help the atmosphere.
Im considering contacting the union for advice as I feel international staff are being targeted but what's others opinions?