Man says hospital denied him treatment due to him wearing inverted cross

A Canadian man says he’s furious after he was initially denied admission to the Rockyview General Hospital, Calgary, for a wrist injury last weekend when he refused to remove an inverted cross necklace he regularly wears as part of his goth garb. Stevahn Bullen, 22, said he feels he was discriminated against by a hospital admitting clerk and wants to ensure no one else faces the same barriers when seeking public health care. “I’m there to get medical attention and I find that absolutely horrible. I was basically denied medical attention right away because he didn’t want to help me,” Bullen said.

“The fact I was singled out because I was wearing something that was offensive to him and denied service — that kind of makes me lose hope in humanity a little bit.” Bullen, a self-described goth, arrived at the southwest Calgary hospital last Saturday afternoon after injuring his wrist at a skateboarding competition. After he was triaged, Bullen sat down with an admitting clerk to fill out some paperwork. Bullen said he initially laughed it off when the clerk pointed out he was wearing his silver necklace “upside-down.” According to Bullen, when the clerk then told him to take off the jewellery, he replied he’d tuck it under his shirt so it was no longer visible, but declined to remove the necklace, citing his arm injury.

That’s when the clerk told him to find someone else to admit him to the hospital, according to Bullen. “The only thing I made very clear was what he just did was highly inappropriate and very unprofessional and I walked away,” Bullen said. Bullen concedes he’s raised eyebrows before with his inverted cross, which is sometimes perceived as a Satanic symbol, and felt he’d offered a good compromise offering to hide it from sight. He didn’t expect the clerk to refuse to help him get admitted to hospital, he said.

“I was so taken aback and shocked by it all,” said Bullen, who wants a personal apology from the clerk. Bullen, who was admitted by another clerk and received treatment for his wrist, said other health professionals in the hospital treated him well and apologized for what happened. In an Alberta Health Services statement, the medical authority said it takes Bullen’s complaint “very seriously” and offered apologies to the Calgarian and his family. “Alberta Health Services staff are responsible for ensuring and providing care to Albertans in a fair and equitable manner. No patients should ever be denied care. This particular complaint is taken very seriously by AHS and will be fully reviewed.”