Britain's gaffe-prone Duke of Edinburgh has told a Filipino nurse that her country must be "half empty" because so many of her compatriots have come to the UK to work for its National Health Service.
The Duke of Edinburgh has told a Filipino nurse that her country must be "half empty" because so many of her compatriots have come to the UK to work for its National Health Service. (Photo: BBC)
"The Philippines must be half empty - you're all here running the NHS," the 91-year-old husband of Queen Elizabeth II joked with the nurse during a visit to Luton and Dunstable Hospital, where he unveiled a new cardiac centre.
The nurse laughed in response, according to a BBC report.
Describing himself as being in a "jovial" mood", the duke said he was the "world's most experienced curtain puller" and asked when the hospital would be getting a helipad so that he would not have to make the journey by car.
A hospital spokesperson would not comment on the duke's conversation with the nurse but said the hospital had not held a recent recruiting campaign in the Philippines.
"Luton is a very cosmopolitan town and the working staff at Luton and Dunstable Hospital reflects that," the spokesperson said.
Britian's Nursing and Midwifery Council said 16,184 of the 670,000 nurses in the UK, around 2.5%, were from the Philippines.
The duke is renowned for making controversial statements during his official duties.
During a state visit to China in 1986, he told British students that they would become “slitty-eyed” if they stayed there.
In 1994 he offended residents of the Cayman Islands when he asked: "Aren't most of you descended from pirates?"
Speaking to a student who had been trekking in Papua New Guinea in 1998, he remarked: "You managed not to get eaten then."
And in 2002, he asked Australian aborigines: "Do you still throw spears at each other then?"