Integrated community team lead Sally Hobbs on Ramadan
Last year I had a short break with my partner in Marrakesh, Morocco. Morocco is a predominantly Muslim country and we visited during Ramadan. In a restaurant one evening the waitress messed up our order and as she was correcting things, she apologised by saying “forgive me, I am fasting”. Just five words, but their impact was profound. I realised that I had never considered how Muslim team members may have felt working during Ramadan, whilst fasting. I had never considered that they may be struggling in the workplace.
I had always considered myself to be anti-racism and an inclusive leader. As an integrated community team lead, I have always encouraged everyone to consider both cultural needs and beliefs as well as medical and physical needs for our patients. Imagine my horror as I realised that the one group of people that I had not considered, was my team.
Although Ramadan was almost over when I returned to work, I immediately contacted team members to check in, see if anyone was fasting and how they were feeling. One nurse was fasting and told me that she started to feel tired in the afternoon and that her concentration lapsed at that time of day. This nurse did not want to feel as though she was treated any differently to anyone else in the team and did not want have a temporarily reduced daily workload; after a brief discussion, that only took a few minutes of my time, we agreed that she would complete any complex visits in a morning when she felt ok, and that any complex visits that had to be completed after lunch would not be allocated to her during Ramadan. This was a simple action that took little of my time, but did make a difference to that nurse.
Planning for the future I researched Ramadan dates for 2023 and made a note in my diary, for early March, to contact all team members in advance to be able to have those individual conversations and consider any amendments that may be necessary to make working during Ramadan as easy as possible for everyone.
Finally…a mental note to self…it’s not all about the patient, we need to look after ourselves and our colleagues too.