Mary Onuoha has filed a lawsuit against her former workplace.
Newsroom (October 15, 2021 9:40 PM, Gaudium Press) Mary Onuoha moved to England from Nigeria in 1988 and began working at Croydon University Hospital in 2002. She always wore a gold cross. There were no complaints from either patients or staff.
“The patients used to tell me, ‘I really like your cross.’ They saw it in a positive way, which gave me joy […] because I know that God loves me very much and that He suffered for me,” Onuoha explains.
However, things changed. Starting in 2015, she was pressured from the hospital administration, ordering her to remove or cover her cross, citing safety issues.
Onuaha, for her part, refused and pointed out that nurses of other faiths were never asked to take off their necklaces, bracelets, or baggy clothing.
“That was an attack on my faith,” Onuoha declared. “My cross has been with me for 40 years. It is part of me and my faith, and it has never hurt anyone.”
“In this hospital, there are staff members who go to the mosque four times a day and no one says anything to them,” she noted. “Hindus wear red bracelets on their wrists and Muslim women wear hijabs. However, my little cross around my neck was considered so dangerous that they did not allow me to continue in my work.”
In 2018, they switched her position from nurse to receptionist, and in June 2020, they forced her to take a “stress leave.”
Last October 5, she appeared at the Croydon Employment Tribunal to start a lawsuit against the hospital.
With information from International Christian Concern
Compiled by Gustavo Kralj
