Stroke patient, 75, died as she lay helpless in hospital bed *content warning - sexual assault MNHQ*

This is absolutely horrific and heartbreaking.

That poor poor woman. The only answer, I think, is to live entirely separate from men.

Perhaps I have worked at some particularly litigation-sensitive trusts, but I honestly thought that was standard.

It's not been standard anywhere I've worked or been a patient. I can't imagine staffing it! I do think it should be standard but I don't know anywhere that it it.

Nurses/HCAs should also never be alone behind a curtain with any patient, of any gender (mostly to avoid complaints about rudeness etc, rather than allegations of sexual assault). They go in pairs.

Perhaps I have worked at some particularly litigation-sensitive trusts, but I honestly thought that was standard.

I'd say you must work at very well staffed trusts. Particularly on night shifts when there may be just one trained nurse and a couple of HCA's for a whole ward.

The new Southmeade Hospital building in Bristol is 80% single rooms, the wards (or gates as they call them ) are huge long corridors, I don't know how things are now but when they opened falls went off the scale due to all these unsupervised patients.

In one of the news stories about this it said he is a 'medic.'

Unfortunately I have seen local news use “medic” to refer to all kinds of random professions - I would only use it to mean a doctor, but plenty of people seem to use it to mean anybody in a hospital.

If it turns out it was a doctor, I really don’t know how you would prevent eg somebody going in to the room to put a cannula in, then assaulting the patient - obviously you need to have a chaperone for intimate examinations, but junior doctors work alone for most of their shifts. You couldn’t be shadowed for the entire shift without doubling your workforce.

You have to assume that most doctors wouldn’t do that (out of concern for their career, if nothing else). But as Shipman showed, if somebody is determined to do evil, they will manage it.

In one of the news stories about this it said he is a 'medic.'

I can't believe he is on bail. It is absolutely sick and it sounds like he used a lot of violence to cause such injuries. Just awful.

it can't be that difficult to ensure that female personal care is only carried out by women

That has been the policy in every trust I have worked at (which is lots). There is plenty of other stuff for male HCAs and nurses to do - obs, IVs and drug rounds, phlebotomy/cannulas, helping with eating and drinking, helping people walk, and of course personal care for men (who presumably also prefer same-sex carers).

Nurses/HCAs should also never be alone behind a curtain with any patient, of any gender (mostly to avoid complaints about rudeness etc, rather than allegations of sexual assault). They go in pairs. Obviously if somebody is in a side room and you are popping in to reset an IV pump or hand out meds, you are out of view. But the door should be open.

Perhaps I have worked at some particularly litigation-sensitive trusts, but I honestly thought that was standard. And yes, obviously doctors are chaperoned for intimate examinations. That is for their own protection.

We don’t know what profession this healthcare worker was - people are assuming a nurse, but he could have been a doctor, or a cleaner. Either way, there seems to be something totally fucked up going on on that stroke ward.

The only thing that makes them a ‘man’ is their penis. This specimen is no man. He’s a raping, cowardly stain on humanity.

Again, I dissent. Rapists often act like the rest of us, they hide in plain sight, and around 6% of men will admit to acts that meet legal definitions of rape and sexual assault as long as the researchers describe the act instead of using the label "rape". The problem with the "rapists are monsters" narrative is that it invites men to consider rapists as "other" and "not like me", when in fact we need men to look critically at themselves and their friends and realise that, as the Chiliean protest song goes, sometimes "the rapist is you".

This has happened before and it is going to happen again. I’m really starting to believe that the only option is to disallow men to work unsupervised near incapacitated or otherwise vulnerable female patients.

The papers might be able to headline with "Man charged with raping woman, 75, to death". But they can't say "man rapes" until there's a guilty verdict.

I can't find the link now but I read on the ONS website that it was considered too upsetting for elderly women to report - the Crime Survey for England and Wales is created from individuals reporting crimes they have experienced.

*Dr Magnus Harrison, executive medical director at the trust, said: “I want to make a full and unreserved apology to all those women who have identified as being harmed.”.

Bold is mine. Very strange wording.*

Thats... incredibly odd and I wonder if it's a misprint - "those women who have BEEN identified as being harmed"?

What that limit says is that currently no one would want to rape an 80 yo woman, or if they did it would be so minimal it wouldn't even register in the statistics. That assumption completely negates rape as an act of power.

So why even have an age limit at all? I can't make sense of it. There must be some attempted 'rationale' somewhere?

This has made me physically sick.
What is the reason he hasn't been charged? Are the police even pursuing this case? Does anyone know how to find out that information?

I did not know about that age limit. Wtf

My mother is a healthy, active, independent woman, still very attractive at 73. In two years time, if she were god forbid to be sexually assaulted, they wouldn't count that in their statistics? What? Why?

What that limit says is that currently no one would want to rape an 80 yo woman, or if they did it would be so minimal it wouldn't even register in the statistics. That assumption completely negates rape as an act of power.

Surely it should be "those women who have identified themselves as having been harmed"? But I would use "come forward" rather than "identified" there as well.

Doctors are often assisted by nursing or support staff and the female support staff can act as a chaperone in the case of a male doctor.

Surely that should be choice though if you have capacity to make it. Obviously it should be standard, so shouldn't have to be requested (as is the current model), but you should have the right to refuse?

[quote persistentwoman]And here's yet another example of the abysmal standards of medical malpractice that women are subjected to by toxic male doctors in the NHS. And of course, he's not been struck off as is so common in these situations:
Share token for The Times:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d02a69b2-b26c-11eb-9055-64edaa2be8dd?shareToken=45ec782f6603fd1c288cb29cba30a1e6[/quote]
Dr Magnus Harrison, executive medical director at the trust, said: “I want to make a full and unreserved apology to all those women who have identified as being harmed.”.

Bold is mine. Very strange wording.

Man rapes vulnerable patient who was helpless recovering from a stroke, woman died later from an injury from that rape.

She didn't die from the stroke.

Why is he protected? Not saying if it was a porter or a doctor?

That poor woman and her poor family.

And the man has been bailed. How?

The only thing that makes them a ‘man’ is their penis. This specimen is no man. He’s a raping, cowardly stain on humanity.

If these ‘men’ are so intent on raping women, they deserve to have that appendage taken away.

I’m all for human rights. Rapists do not deserve rights.

Having read the article shared by persistentwoman

I stand by the proposal I made on a previous thread that in future only women should be permitted to specialise in gynaecology and obstetrics.

Sent too soon

So there is arguably not the same need of male only nurses and support workers for men’s wards.

And here's yet another example of the abysmal standards of medical malpractice that women are subjected to by toxic male doctors in the NHS. And of course, he's not been struck off as is so common in these situations:
Share token for The Times:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d02a69b2-b26c-11eb-9055-64edaa2be8dd?shareToken=45ec782f6603fd1c288cb29cba30a1e6

I am glad that your second birth was a better experience for you than your first teenagewhore.
I think that a general rule applies despite the exception.

I would expect to have only female nurses and support workers on women’s wards.

Doctors are often assisted by nursing or support staff and the female support staff can act as a chaperone in the case of a male doctor.

I think it is fairly clear that men are not at risk from female staff to the same degree as women are from male staff and that in fact many men feel comfortable with female health professionals sometimes even more so than male health professionals.

I'm not sure what would help with preventing this happening again. I wouldn't expect a single sex ward to be single sex staff. I'm also not sure how the NHS would function if that were the case, there aren't enough male nurses to staff the male wards and there's not enough female doctors in all specialities. Chaperones would work, though there's then the issue of having more people than necessary examining/ looking at you, and for it to work the chaperone really does have to watch exactly what's happening. Chaperones just sat in the corner of the room don't work, it's too easy to cover up an inappropriate touch.