Dear Editor,
I would like to draw your attention to the need for better training of the security team at Faro Airport.
Our daughter is undergoing chemotherapy in a series of weekly treatments and has lost her hair, eyelashes and eyebrows. She wears a colourful turban to cover her baldness.
She came to Portugal for a few days to recover somewhat, flying from Gatwick to Faro.
Security at Gatwick made no mention of her turban and her passage through the metal detector was uneventful. However, on her return through Faro the security people insisted that she remove her turban before going through the metal detector.
She was most unhappy with this and asked what was done with Sikhs and women wearing hijabs, to which there was no response – only insistence that she remove her turban. She suggested that she might go through the metal detector and remove the turban if it beeped, which was not accepted.
There was no understanding of her situation at all, only pig-headed insistence and a complete lack of understanding or sympathy.
Our daughter was very distraught, embarrassed and humiliated, in floods of tears, bald headed in public for the first time, with people staring. For a woman, losing her hair is indeed unpleasant – but having to show it to the world is quite something else.
I believe that suitable training of the security staff for this kind of thing is essential and urgent.
Caroline Garvey,
Carvoeiro
