NHS Doctors Face Crisis of ‘Institutional Discrimination’ for Speaking Out on Gaza

In August 2024, British-Jordanian emergency medicine expert Dr Nadeem Crowe was suspended from the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, north London, over an anonymous complaint made about his criticism of Israel. 

Crowe had posted that “the genocide in Gaza was going to go down in Israel and Jewish history” and called Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer – who told BBCR4’s Today programme that Hamas and the UN were causing malnutrition in Gaza, and accused Krishnan Guru-Murthy of “advocating for Hamas” – a “vile scrotum”.

Crowe had an unblemished medical record and had worked at the Royal Free’s A&E department for 15 years. He was suspended ahead of an investigation into his X posts about Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.

Crowe told Novara Media that he was treated more harshly by management than staff implicated in “clinical harm to patients”. He described feeling utter panic and confusion when he was first notified that a complaint had been made against him. “I’m thinking, have I killed somebody?” he said. It took him submitting a Freedom of Information Act request to even find out what the offending posts were. 

“I’m known as kind of a doctor who would do anything for anyone. But all of a sudden  one random person makes a complaint related to something personal to me,” Crowe said. “And then I’m told I can’t work? It rips you apart because you think, how can they make such a rash judgement? 

“Over my career, I’ve seen so many patients come to actual clinical harm – minor or major – and I’ve never seen anyone suspended for that. Patients being seen five times and then dying, you know? And you think, well, hang on a minute. Wouldn’t that be a reason to take those clinicians out of work?”

Crowe’s suspension was lifted after he deactivated his X account, but he didn’t feel able to stay in his role. He told Novara Media: “I do not feel that the NHS is a safe employer for any pro-Palestinian or Middle Eastern doctor.” The A&E doctor is now taking his former employer to court for discrimination.

The suspension is one of a number of similar cases which leave medics feeling bullied and have attracted the attention of pro-Israel lobby groups. 

Speaking about Crowe’s experience, consultant Dr David Patch, who has worked at the Royal Free for over 30 years, said: “It’s not just sad, it’s stupid. You have trouble staffing your A&E and then make someone leave? 

“Fifteen years he’s been turning out to A&E, which is the hardest, most unforgiving, most thankless task. I work in liver transplantation – lots of patients are very grateful, [I get] lots of positive feedback – A&E is different.” 

In the two years since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023, Israel has killed at least 1,722 healthcare workers in the enclave – an average of more than two medics killed every day. Every single hospital in Gaza has been attacked, resulting in damage or complete destruction. Israel’s campaign has been dubbed “medicide” by UN experts. 

In this brutal context, health workers who wish to speak out about the horrors they are witnessing must navigate the General Medical Council’s (GMC) social media guidance, which states that medical professionals do have rights to freedom of belief, privacy and expression – but this must be “balanced with the possible impact on other people’s rights and interests”. Medical professionals must be “honest and trustworthy” in their communications and not “abuse, discriminate against, bully, harass or deliberately target any individual or group”. 

When it comes to healthcare professionals who wish to show solidarity with fellow medics in Gaza with a flag or watermelon pin badge, whether this is permitted is decided by individual NHS trusts. 

Some medical professionals have discovered just how restrictively those rules can be interpreted. 

Trainee GP Dr Tamara Ali faced disciplinary action from NHS Scotland in March for displaying a small Palestinian flag in her consulting room and a Palestine pin on her scrubs – she was asked to remove them after an anonymous patient complaint that described the flag as being connected to “terrorism”. 

Ali told Novara Media that instead of rejecting what she describes as a “malicious, racist and Islamophobic complaint” she was punished by NHS Education for Scotland. “Four senior doctors publicly confronted me in front of colleagues – one of them explicitly comparing the Palestine flag to Nazi and MAGA extremist symbols. 

“They warned that raising concerns about discrimination could derail my career, issued negative assessment feedback, and left me more isolated, excluded and anxious than in all my six years working as a doctor in the NHS.”

Despite this, Ali says, rainbow lanyards, Ukraine badges and poppies are all fine to be displayed. “If my former employer permits and encourages staff to visibly support some protected characteristics, it has no right to silence others,” she said. “That is not neutrality – it is blatant, unlawful discrimination.”

Ali is taking her former employer to court for discrimination. 

A spokesperson for NHS Scotland said: “We cannot discuss individuals’ employment matters. NHS policies are a matter for the Scottish government.”

Patch had his own brush with the medical authorities for his views on Palestine. He was reported to the GMC by pro-Israel lawfare group UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) over a handful of social media posts about the genocide and starvation in Gaza. 

Patch was called to a meeting by hospital senior management, where he agreed to delete the posts UKLFI complained about – comparing denying starvation in Gaza to denying starvation in Dachau concentration camp and saying “the Holocaust of Gaza is a stain on humanity”. 

Patch told Novara Media: “I just felt dirty afterwards… I don’t regret the post. I think it was accurate. I regret being bullied. That’s what I don’t like. I feel emasculated by it.” 

For Crowe’s part, he described having post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety and feeling fearful in his workplace after the suspension. He told Novara Media: “From Wes Streeting through NHS England, down to trusts and through to the executive teams within the NHS, there must be some message that has gone round to say you must crack down on any voice that speaks up against Israel by any means you can.” 

Barrister Franck Magennis, who has represented numerous professionals facing GMC regulatory prosecution and is currently representing NHS staff in employment tribunals, told Novara Media: “The British state is actively participating in the racist mass murder of Palestinians. The NHS forms part of that British state complicity, and includes systematic suppression of anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian speech. 

“In my professional experience representing anti-Zionist clients, Zionist complaints against NHS workers usually crumble if challenged head-on through trade union organising and legal action.”

Double standards.

Crowe believes there is a double standard of scrutiny for health professionals within the NHS – where those advocating for Palestinian rights are met with harsh sanctions, while those posting pro-Israel, anti-Arab or Islamophobic messages on social media are able to continue as normal. 

He has authored a report on “unequal justice” in the NHS, comparing the cases of himself, Dr Rahmeh Aladwan, Dr Rehiana Ali and Dr Tamara Ali – sanctioned for anti-Israel speech or displaying symbols such as the Palestinian flag – with those of pro-Israel colleagues. 

In the case of Dr Aladwan, the health secretary Wes Streeting made an unprecedented intervention, telling Jewish News that he had “no confidence in the ability of our medical regulation system to keep patients safe”, after an interim orders tribunal (IOT) ruled that she was not at risk to patients regarding her posts on social media criticising Israel and “Jewish supremacy”. Aladwan was referred to a second IOT after pro-Israel lobby group the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) intervened.

Pro-Israel doctors, Crowe argues, appear to face fewer consequences. The report names Dr Michael Joffe, a consultant neuroradiologist at the Royal Free who publicly defended the actions of Israel in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), writing that “the numbers of deaths of health workers would be minimal had Hamas not used hospitals and health workers as human shields”. Joffe also described both Hamas and “the Palestinian people” as culpable for celebrating and carrying out the 7 October attacks.

A conservative estimate of more than 67,000 Palestinians – including 20,000 children – have been killed by Israel since 7 October 2023. 

A formal complaint was made about Joffe’s BMJ article by Healthcare Workers Against Censorship on 2 October. At the time of reporting, they have not received a response. 

Crowe’s report also cites the case of his Royal Free colleague Dr Martin Glasser – who reposted a message on X accusing kidnapped Palestinian pediatrician and neonatologist Dr Hussam Abu Safiya of being “a member of a terror organisation of murdering rapists”. Safiya is still being held illegally by Israel without charge or trial. 

Glasser’s repost was still up on his X account, which identifies him as a “geriatrician at Royal Free”, at the time of reporting. 

Crowe also argues there is “asymmetrical empathy” on Israel-Palestine from NHS Trusts, describing how many trusts immediately issued internal communications to staff condemning the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel – but failing to provide anything similar regarding Israel’s mass slaughter of civilians and fellow healthcare workers in Gaza. 

The report states: “This silence on the suffering of Arab and Muslim staff further entrenches the perception that the institutions of the NHS value the psychological safety of one community over the other.” 

This isn’t the first time that NHS trusts have been accused of double standards when it comes to international conflicts. Barts NHS Trust in London introduced a ban on “political symbols” in March after pressure from UKLFI, leading to legal action from three staff members, including British-Palestinian senior nurse Ahmed Baker and Jewish doctor Dr Aarash Saleh. 

Saleh told Novara Media in July that Barts “put out a number of statements and even encouraged members to send aid and form links with Ukraine” but “when it’s Palestinians who have been killed in never-before-seen levels of suffering and violence, we suddenly have this urgent need for ‘neutrality’, for fear of upsetting people”. 

Crowe told Novara Media: “I’m absolutely disgusted that our health system is trying to support the notion that people like me are not safe to treat Jewish patients. That’s an insult to Jewish patients, because no one can make any assumption about what any Jew feels about Israel or the way Israel is acting right now. 

“The narrative that’s trying to be driven – and is being supported by the health secretary and the GMC – is that by saying what’s happening in Gaza is disgusting, we are Jew haters and are a risk to a cohort of patients, and I won’t stand for it.” 

Patch added that he believes doctors should be held to “higher moral standards” because their role is to preserve human life and minimise suffering. “To not speak out on a genocide, I think is ethically questionable.”

A GMC spokesperson told Novara Media: “The GMC is the independent regulator of doctors, physician associates and anaesthesia associates in the UK – this means we operate independently of governments, the professions we regulate and others. To suggest otherwise is wrong, and risks damaging trust and confidence in our processes.”

The Royal Free London Trust has been approached for comment.