The new $2.3 billion Royal Adelaide Hospital will open this year with a prayer room for Muslims but without a “chapel” after bureaucrats opted for a “spiritual care” area to cater for “multiple faiths”.
The move has angered Australian Conservatives senator Cory Bernardi, who says Australians are “sick and tired” of accommodating a minority religion while undermining Christian traditions and heritage.
The hospital’s new “spiritual care” room is a departure from other major hospitals in the state, including the Queen Elizabeth and Flinders Medical Centre, which have chapels.
A chapel and a separate prayer space for Muslims exist at the current Royal Adelaide Hospital, while the Women’s and Children’s Hospital has recently opened a “sacred space” for all religions.
South Australian Health Minister Jack Snelling, a key figure in Labor’s Catholic right faction, told The Australian yesterday in a brief statement that arrangements for the chapel at the new hospital “are the same as they are at the current RAH (Royal Adelaide Hospital)”.
However, the new hospital is yet to be opened and SA Health has spruiked its still unveiled religious areas as “a dedicated space for private, individual or group prayer, meditation and quiet reflection” on level three of the vast building. Both spaces — the prayer room and the spiritual care area — are understood to be devoid of religious symbols.
The prayer room has separate washing facilities for men and women, and compass points to show the direction of Mecca.
Senator Bernardi, a South Australian, said the new hospital’s arrangement was “everything that’s wrong” with the approach to integrate other cultural groups, and the prayer room was “clearly designed for Islam”.
Separate washing areas were “all the symbolism I need that this is tailor-made to accommodate to a tiny minority”, he said yesterday. “We’re bending over to appease a minority for fear of causing offence while undermining our tradition and heritage.
“In a hospital environment, catering to all faiths is important, but what’s happened here is all faiths are supposed to share the space except for those of Islam, who once again want to exclude themselves and be granted special status.
“If you’re going to give priority to a particular faith, it should be to the Christian faith because that’s the overwhelmingly dominant ethos and part of our cultural ethos.”
The 2011 census showed that 61.1 per cent of Australians identified as Christian and 2.2 per cent as Muslim, with the Christian majority higher in South Australia.
The Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth has a multi-faith prayer room and a dedicated room for the Muslim community. Similar facilities are planned for the delayed new $1.2bn Perth Children’s Hospital, not expected to open until later this year.
Perth church leaders lobbied the then Barnett Liberal government in 2015 for a Christian chapel to be built at the Perth Children’s Hospital. Now retired Anglican Archbishop Roger Herft called the Perth hospital’s multi-faith centre “an empty shell for people who are grasping for hope”.
Muslims Australia president Kayser Trad said Senator Bernardi’s concerns were “further evidence of (his) paranoia and narrow-minded bigotry”. He said decisions about prayer spaces related to the needs of the hospital’s demographic, with Muslims requiring wash facilities for a variety of limbs, including feet.
“Many non-Muslims find using a wash basin to wash the feet objectionable,” Mr Trad said.
Anglican Diocese of Adelaide administrator Bishop Tim Harris said he understood the new hospital provided areas that would be “genuinely multi-faith”.
“While the Christian presence is still significant, and numerically still the majority, we recognise we are no longer living in times of the church receiving privileged status in public space, nor do we seek such privileged or priority treatment in publicly funded facilities.”
The hospital was supposed to open in April last year before a legal dispute between government and builders delayed it; now it is a year overdue and $640 million over budget.