Bounty sales reps in hospitals. A feminist issue?

Yes, it's a feminist issue.

I don't understand how they can possibly be getting proper consent to hold personal information. Loads of women must be in pain/distressed/still on strong drugs and fairly vulnerable. Isn't there any part of a data collection/protection law that prevents this?

Would any other post-surgical ward allow direct selling to patients? I think not.

as in recently bereaved/off their tits from drugs after surgery

Is there no law against selling to the obviously vulnerable?

I definitely think they should be banned.

I had cs with both of mine, and so was on the "being slightly more closely looked at" ward, on morphine and with catheter.

The bounty women came and did full on Hard Sell.

In what world is it OK for people who are post operative and high as kites on opiates to be accessed by hard sell people?

they are absolute FUCKERS IMO

They talked me into more than I wanted (DD1 - I could only have a bag if I gave them my name phone number email etc) but the women in the beds around me coughed up for £££ photos while they were ill and drugged and the sales technique was proper full on Hard Sell.

Honestly I hate them.

What can I do to support MN campaign?

Yes it is a feminist issue.

It is bloody disgraceful that women are being harassed on NHS premises, where no man or child would be allowed to be harassed.

I think the undercurrent is that women are expected to present a little gift-wrapped present of their baby to everyone else, regardless of their own health, welfare and wishes. It's that culture that permits the obscene commercialisation of the invasion of women's privacy by a public body.

I've been reading the Bounty threads ever since they started here. I was appalled by what I was reading. But I couldn't really relate to those accounts, because my children were born back in the late 1970s. I think we might have been given Bounty bags, but I can't be certain, and anyway recalling whether we did or not is very low down on the list of things to remember after so long.

But, reading this particular thread, and thinking if this is a feminist issue, I got a flashback to those days, and thought: damn sure it's a feminist issue.

Back then, drugs were administered and examinations carried out, without any regard whatsoever of the concept of consent. In fact, I only found out what drugs had been given me because the woman in the next bed, who was a nurse, had asked, and she had been told, because she was a nurse.

Many years later, on doing some research once I'd got access to the internet, I discovered that back then the Medical Defence Union had stated their view that once a pregnant woman stepped over the threshold of the maternity hospital she was to be regarded as thereby giving her implicit consent to every treatment/drug the consultant decided on. Hence, no information, and no discussion.

Fast-forward to the current Bounty issue. Of course any woman can say no to the Bounty rep, but there have been too many instances where women didn't know they had that right, too many instances where women couldn't easily identify the Bounty rep as being a rep rather than a HCP, too many women feeling pressured into giving personal information to someone who they didn't know wasn't an HCP, and so on.

In those hospitals which allow Bounty reps on the wards, no woman has given her implicit consent by stepping over the threshold to being approached by a sales representative. It shouldn't be the default response that a woman can say no; the default response should be that no woman should have to.

It's a horrible flashback to the times when consultants/hospitals made all the decisions, and women had no say.

Yes, how many people on here have been in tears at the idea of being descended upon by family in the delivery room..and told to get over it! they are there to see the baby. As though the woman on the bed is just a convenient milk supply for the new baby

I think so.

Like posters have said, it wouldn't happen on any other ward.

It seems to me to be connected to the perception that birth is 'natural' and the pain (and sometimes trauma) of birth is something women just have to 'get over'. Women are treated as incubators and not as people (hence why all the celebration when a baby is born - so many grandparents go straight for the baby, completely ignoring what the woman has gone through).

Hence it's logical that while recovering from birth they are not properly regarded as true patients - patients who may have suffered a lot and need emotional and physical care, including being shielded from random strangers trying to sell them things.

Yes its a feminist issue. I am not aware of sales people going around wards with male patients, pulling back privacy screens, trying to sell things to men who have just undergone major abdominal surgery, perhaps who have had blood loss, or still have a catheter attached. Men who have just had to pass gall stones aren't (to the best of my knowledge) asked to give up their personal details to marketing companies, or have them stolen from their notes 'because they were busy'. Perhaps, the NHS could earn some money by allowing companies selling insurance, stairlifts, or mobility scooters to wards of older men.

I think that it's partly that the arrival of a new human being is such a time for celebration (and apparently therefore a commercial opportunity) that more emphasis is on the cute baby, than on the woman who has perhaps had medical proceedures, and will be physically and usually emotionally vulnerable.

It is (or should be) an intimate time for the parents to bond with the newbaby, perhaps learning to feed him/her, and for the woman to recover from birth/section. I think it is completely inappropriate to sell to women at this time, as not only can they be physically vulnerable, even if the birth has gone smoothly, physiologically their bodies are prepped to bond with the new infant, and so they might be feeling more well disposed towards any commercial offer than they would otherwise be.

Although the MN campaign doesn't seem to highlight this, I'm certain that a previous MN discussion about the issue pointed out that selling to people who are vulnerable and in a private space (you know, like in a hospital bed) is against existing direct selling guidelines.

To those who think of the bounty packs as just a goodie bag, maybe they sho-uld look at the contents of the Finnish box for new mums www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22751415 and then decide whether they are being sold a bit short for a tiny tub of sudocrem and marketing rubbish.

Yes it's a feminist issue. Especially where many women are saying it has caused they distress but they are supposed to take it. It wouldn't happen on any other ward.

Anyone else remember a really nasty thread where women who said they wern't comfortable with male doctors or midwives doing internals being told they should "get over it"?

And called sexist best of all.

So 1/4th of women in this world are sexually attacked and all women in this world are taught not to uncover themselves to men...but if they suddenly feel uncomfortable letting a straneg man put their hand up their fanjo..wel they are the sexist ones. and should get over it.

I remember one man person saying that it was necessary even for rape kits etc if say only a man was available. Even if a woman had been assaulted she should have to sub lit to a rape kit from a man for justice to be served even if it could be equally traumatic at that point as the actual rape. And thy all said it was sexist for health authorities to hire enough women to provide these services. Because you know there are obviously so many more qualified men to stick their hands up women's fannies that to hire an appropriate amount of women would be unfeasible.

Oh and it was the same as refusing a person based on race.

Suck it up woman.

I went off topic there, but it still makes me furious.