By Yousra Samir Imran, The New Arab, 05 September 2025

 

LONDON, 11 Sept. - (ANA) - On August 14, 2024, Dr Nadeem Haddadin-Crowe walked into Royal Free Hospital in North West London ready to embark on another shift in the hospital's A&E department, where he worked as a locum specialised in emergency medicine for 15 years.

 

An hour later, he was on his way home again.

 

The Jordanian-British doctor received an email from the hospital's Responsible Officer, whose job it is to oversee NHS employees' conduct, telling him to go home because he was suspended with immediate effect.

 

In the email, the Responsible Officer informed Haddadin-Crowe that the Trust had some concerns about him and that he was to attend an 'informal meeting' the following afternoon. Given that medical practitioners tend only to be suspended with immediate effect for major clinical malpractice, Dr Nadeem was terrified.

 

“It was the worst 24 hours of my life," Dr Nadeem tells The New Arab. “I was lying in bed thinking, ‘What have I done? Who have I hurt?"

 

He says he contacted the General Medical Council (GMC) immediately, but was told they had no complaints against him. He then spoke to the British Medical Association (BMA), who informed him that, under employment law, a doctor cannot be suspended and called to a meeting without an explanation.

 

Twenty-four hours later, Dr Nadeem sat on an MS Teams meeting with the Responsible Officer, an NHS HR manager and a colleague he brought to represent him. It was then that he discovered the reason for his immediate suspension: a complaint about a number of his tweets on the social media platform X regarding the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The Responsible Officer refused to say who had lodged the complaint or to show him the tweets in question.

 

“I asked her if she was accusing me of anti-Semitism," says Dr Nadeem. “She said she wasn't saying that. I said, ‘If I want to express my disgust over what's going on in Gaza, I'm free to do so,' and she said it was a question of professionalism. I kept challenging what that meant, and she began to stammer."

 

Dr Nadeem was then told he would be investigated. The Responsible Officer's next request stunned him.

 

“She told me I could bring in a specialist on the Israel-Gaza conflict to advise what was acceptable for me to say," he says.

 

“At that point, I needed a minute. My colleague took over and said, ‘Can I just reiterate that you're suggesting Nadeem brings a specialist on the conflict to advise on what is an acceptable opinion to express,' and she said yes."

 

Taking the advice of a colleague, Dr Nadeem ultimately made the decision to deactivate his X account. At this point, the Trust told him that no further action would be taken.

 

But the discrimination he endured at the hands of his now ex-Trust meant that not only would he refuse to serve an NHS that treated its locum doctors this way any longer — he was also going to challenge them. And so, he launched legal action.

 

What Dr Nadeem says is most worrying about his case is that he was suspended under no particular policy, and when asked, the Trust was unable to pinpoint a policy.

 

An NHS social media policy for bank workers states they should not ‘do anything that could be considered discriminatory against, or bullying or harassment of any individual, such as making offensive or derogatory comments relating to sex, gender reassignment, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief or age, or using social media to bully another individual.'

 

He says this social media policy was never brought before him.

 

Eventually, the Trust showed him the tweets he was suspended over. In one, he had called the IDF ‘baby killers and rapists,' and the other was a reply to an October 7 2023, anniversary video by a pro-Zionist account, which stated that all Gazans are terrorists, which he had replied to, refuting this as a racist generalisation.

 

Ultimately, Dr Nadeem felt he was being silenced because of his pro-Palestine stance and Arab ethnicity. He says a senior white-British doctor was disciplined about pro-Palestine social media posts, but only asked to sign a ‘behavioural contract' promising not to post about the war on Gaza again.

 

“I try to explain why their action towards me was so instantaneous and severe. And that can either be explained by the fact that I'm a locum or that I'm an Arab," he says.

 

“I also believe that not having specific policies for bank workers that are as robust as those for full-time employees is also a form of discrimination, particularly when a large proportion of locums and bank workers are from ethnic minorities. I think there are two layers of discrimination at play here."

 

As a locum or bank worker, Dr Nadeem was told he could not raise a grievance against the NHS because his employee-employer relationship was different to that of a permanent worker. He soon discovered this was incorrect, leading him to file a case with ACAS, which will now go to an employment tribunal.

 

A preliminary hearing was held in June 2025, and the judge agreed to take forward his claims of direct discrimination and harassment.

 

Due to a shortage of judges, the next hearing will not be until June 2026, where Dr Nadeem says he will be represented by Leigh Day, a legal firm representing a number of NHS healthworkers taking legal action against the NHS over disciplinary action for showing support for Palestine.

 

With legal costs quickly adding up to £100,000, Dr Nadeem has been trying to crowdfund the money on crowdjustice.

 

He eventually managed to find a job in the private healthcare sector, but the mental toll has been significant, causing him anxiety, insomnia and frequent nightmares.

 

“There is a duty of care to staff. Some nurses and doctors have committed suicide waiting for the outcomes of investigations, or who couldn't deal with not knowing what it was about," he says.

 

“We have a lot of people operating in these systems that don't understand their own policies. I will not give my service to an NHS that doesn't want to pay its junior doctors properly and which hasn't stood up for people going through a genocide and a health crisis."

 

During this difficult period, he says he has found some solace in his perfumery, Rook Perfumes London. The line has a series of perfumes inspired by Palestine, such as Jaffa, which includes notes of orange blossom, neroli and white flowers, and Faqqua Iris: A Scent for Gaza, with notes of iris, amberwood and white musk. He says when it comes to perfume, no one can claim you are wearing an anti-Semitic scent.

 

“The thing with perfume is somebody can ask, ‘What are you wearing?' and you can say ‘A scent for Gaza,'" he explains.

 

“It's a moment for you and a moment for connection without anybody being able to silence you. It's another form of representation. While Zionism tries to erase Palestinians, we have to keep reminding them, ‘You destroy a flag, I raise you a map. You destroy a map, I raise you a perfume. You destroy a perfume, I raise you a play,'" he tells The New Arab.

 

“It's a battle, and my art is perfume."

 

 

 

 

Yousra Samir Imran is a British Egyptian writer and author based in Yorkshire. She is the author of Hijab and Red Lipstick, published by Hashtag Press. (ANA) -

 

 

AB/ANA/11 September 2025 - - -