Christian nurse faces harsh punishment for talking about faith with cancer patients

Sarah Kuteh, a nurse in the United Kingdom with 15 years of experience, was fired from her position with the Darent Valley Hospital after daring to speak with patients about faith and prayer.

On March 30, the U.K. Employment Tribunal heard her case, and a decision is expected in April.

CBN News reports during the trial, a judge said, “Many people are not religious and there are many people that object. It is a subject fraught with difficulty and as a consequence people should not express anything about their own beliefs without it first being raised as a question by someone else.”

Kuteh lost her job for allegedly engaging in “gross misconduct.” According to the complaint against her, Kuteh spent too much time talking about religion. One patient accused her of being too focused on religion. Another said Kuteh told her she’d have a better chance of survival if the patient prayed.

Kuteh denied the charge that she “impose her religious beliefs” on others, saying, “I don’t want it to look like it was a habit. I would not always initiate it, only when I’m prompted in the questionnaire.”

Kuteh’s legal representative, Pavel Stroilov, said the evidence of the alleged complaints from patients against Kuteh are “astonishingly brief and vague handwritten notes.” Stroilov says the evidence against Kuteh is “wholly unsatisfactory,” according to a report by USA Today.

The hospital insists Kuteh was not fired for her religious beliefs, but rather for sharing them with people who didn’t want to hear about them.

“It was apparent to us that Mrs. Kuteh was disciplined because she had engaged in conversations about religion that were unwanted by patients and contrary to her line manager’s instructions,” said Victoria Leivers-Carruth, who chaired the appeal hearing.

Kuteh says pre-operation questionnaires required her to discuss religion with patients and that only within the proper context did she bring up her own faith.

“I’m serious about my religion, but I don’t think I imposed my religion on patients,” said Kuteh, according to the Telegraph, a popular publication in the United Kingdom.