A Catholic chaplain and former professor of neurosciences is taking legal action against an NHS trust after he was ousted for answering a patient’s questions about the Church’s teaching on marriage.
In a letter written in response to the patients’ subsequent complaint, the Acting Chief Executive of South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust, Vanessa Ford, stated that the Trust’s policy on Equality and Diversity “takes precedence over religious belief.”
Supported by the Christian Legal Centre, Rev. Dr Patrick Pullicino, 73, is pursuing a claim against the Trust for harassment, religious discrimination, and victimisation against the Trust. The trial is set to take place in July 2023 at Croydon Employment Tribunal.
Rev. Dr Pullicino has had a distinguished career in the NHS as a consultant neurologist until being ordained as a Catholic priest in 2019.
He is best known as one of the few doctors who first raised the alarm in 2012 over the abuses carried out under the Liverpool Care Pathway, an end-of-life protocol abolished two years later.
Catholic teaching
On the 20 August 2019, Rev. Pullicino was assigned to visit a male patient on one of the hospital’s mental health wards who had specifically requested to see a Catholic chaplain. The patient requested that they go for a walk outside, which they did, accompanied by one other member of staff…
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