Never thought I'd post on here but males on female hospital wards. Wtf

This is about access to women. And demanding that access knowing or not caring if your presence makes those women uncomfortable.

The disregard for female patients' safety, dignity and privacy is not confined to single-sex accomodation but also intimate examinations by male HCPs. NHS policies and best practice suggest that female patients have the right to withold consent to examination/treatment by male HCPs and/or require the presence of same-sex chaperones. The NHS is however unable to deliver this important Safeguard.

Sunday Times
December 08 2019,
'Patient branded transphobic after asking for female medic
A clinic has apologised over its reaction to a letter from a rape survivor who wanted a woman to carry out her breast screening'

(extract)
A woman who asked for her NHS breast-screening to be carried out by a female-born clinician was pilloried as a transphobe by a hospital trust.

Clare Dimyon, 54, who was raped as a teenager and is a lesbian, wrote formal letters asking to be seen by a “natal female” when she went for a mammogram on Christmas Eve last year.

She made clear that after being violated by a man when she was “little more than a child” she did not consent to intimate procedures being carried out by people born as boys." (continues)

The mammographer signed one letter confirming she was female and another letter was placed in Dimyon’s medical records. But two weeks ago she saw her letters highlighted by the trust as examples of “unacceptable” and “highly discriminatory” communications in guidelines to support trans patients and staff.
Her requests had been anonymised, but were not given any context. The trust failed to say that they were written before a mammogram, an intimate procedure.
This weekend the trust defended its stance. “It is not possible to guarantee to any patient that they will only be treated by a clinician assigned to a specific gender at birth and, as an organisation that prides itself on our commitment to diversity and inclusion, nor would we wish to do so,” it said." (continues)

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/patient-branded-transphobic-after-asking-for-female-medic-3jh3snddt

archive archive.fo/VF6NB#selection-845.0-863.303

i News
December 31st 2017
'NHS trust apologises to woman after ‘nurse with stubble and deep voice’ tried to take smear test'
(extract)
"The NHS has apologised to a woman who was left “embarrassed and distressed” after a nurse with stubble and a deep voice was going to carry out her cervical smear test at hospital.

The woman requested a female NHS nurse to perform the intimate procedure but was dismayed when a staff member with “an obviously male appearance” greeted her.

When the patient pointed out the mistake, the nurse replied: “My gender is not male. I’m a transsexual.” (continues)
inews.co.uk/news/health/nhs-woman-transgender-nurse-smear-test-114009

Agree that this is terrible. I'm disgusted with the NHS and their current policies on so many things now.

@Rosesareredd

Such a pick me girl.

I don’t have time to comment and reply to every response to me. Saying there’s something wrong with me when I was a teenage girl for not being uncomfortable around middle-aged men is bizarre.
Why would I need to be uncomfortable? They were all reading newspapers and drinking tea from what I remember.
To judge and incriminate them just for being male and having a penis would be wrong, when all of my experiences around men at that age were positive.

At least 1,019 reports of sexual assaults on mixed wards April 2017 to October 2019 compared to just 286 reports of incidents on single-sex mental health wards over the same period.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3789095-Over-1-000-sexual-assaults-in-mixed-sex-mental-health-wards

FFS. Let's revisit the basic tenets of safeguarding again shall we:

Safeguarding is grounded in mitigating against potential risks. It's not a personal value judgement on individuals.

We look at different factors and make decisions based on risk. This is grounded in statistics and facts.

Personal feelings are not part of this analysis, and the vast majority of people are not offended by this.

No one is exempt from this process, again this is not a value judgement on any individual person, it's about the collective.

Single sex wards are a legitimate and sensible approach to mitigating against the risk of sexual assaults in a hospital setting.

I investigate safeguardings in hospital settings. I have investigated sexual assaults. In my experience, unfortunately, hospital trusts are not receptive to safeguarding outcomes and recommendations, even where there is a clear pattern of repeated incidents. I could write a book on it, but for the purposes of this thread, single sex wards are a basic frontline safeguarding tool which help to mitigate against the risk of sexual assault. It really is that simple. It has nothing to do with anyone feelings, or whether someone feels comfortable with sharing their space with the opposite sex or not, safeguarding doesn't (or shouldn't with the current shit show going on) care about your feelings.

The constant pushing and blurring of safeguarding boundaries has got us into this position, and as I've said before, nothing gets my spidey senses tingling more than people who object to safeguarding processes and procedures.

Off to bang my head against a brick wall again. Wtf has happened to safeguarding???

Weren't alot also told to ignore the request altogether as it all was taking too long?

Doesn't take too long to fill out hundreds if pages about what you have done to shit on women and every other protected characteristic though...

Funny that..

When you write, ask to see their equality impact assessment first

I tried and was told it was guidelines not policy and only policy requires an eia.

Well, thats the point.

When you write, ask to see their equality impact assessment first

Yeah good luck with that.

When you look at all thr FOI responses from the hundreds if requests submitted regarding association, money ajd training etc from stonewall, the one thing missing on every response I saw was guess what....

No impact assessment.
Always N/A

Held by some other non named department elsewhere.

Not done

The part if the request ignored completely

When you write, ask to see their equality impact assessment first.

''Equality and human rights duties impact analysis for provider handbook on acute hospitals, mental health and community health services''
www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/20140925_hospitals_provider_handbook_equality_impact_assessment_analysis_final.pdf

[quote Rosesareredd]@GoldenBlue
@GCAcademic

You are insinuating that all men pose a threat and we should be threatened by their presence. We can’t incriminate all men.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have individual wards for different sexes either, just that it doesn’t make me uncomfortable to share the same ward with the opposite sex.[/quote]
FFS does it always come back to NAMALT?

Yes. We know. The problem is we can't tell which ones are the dangerous ones, can we.

Believe me, if it were possible, I wouldn't have ended up married to one.

This isn't about safety - or a single room on the male ward would suffice. And indeed being on a male ward would be safer as the staff would be more attuned to caring for men, their reactions to drugs, and normal male levels from tests etc.

This isn't about access to women's wards or a single room there would suffice.

This is about access to women. And demanding that access knowing or not caring if your presence makes those women uncomfortable.

.

You are insinuating that all men pose a threat and we should be threatened by their presence. We can’t incriminate all men.

No-one has done this. Recognising that males as a class represent potential risk to girls and women in certain situations does not mean that all boys and men are a risk. Just as recognising that adults as a class in certain situations represent potential risk to children does not mean that all adults are a risk.

For those who do not understand Safeguarding/Child Protection and underestimate the potential implications of disregarding policies/principles, I would encourage reading the findings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse:

www.iicsa.org.uk/

Just to say I really like Mercy Muroki. She's very straightforward and clear in her views and not afraid to say what she thinks. Worth watching GB news in the morning just for her.

[quote Rosesareredd]@GoldenBlue
@GCAcademic

You are insinuating that all men pose a threat and we should be threatened by their presence. We can’t incriminate all men.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have individual wards for different sexes either, just that it doesn’t make me uncomfortable to share the same ward with the opposite sex.[/quote]
Great. Do please tell us how we differentiate between the lovely safe men & those men who will assault us just by looking

Mercy Muroki GB news presenter has just declared herself GC. GB news are debating the single sex wards issue this morning and will have guests on later.

Sorry don't know who or what time, also sorry about it being GB news which I feel some will need a Daily Mail style apology for!

A great template letter with all the links on how to find who in the NHS in your locality to send a letter to is here:

docs.google.com/document/d/1YaacyWCeXwK001LDY0mW57LdHMzpDwFsaypxyrmTUkc/edit

[quote Rosesareredd]@GoldenBlue
@GCAcademic

You are insinuating that all men pose a threat and we should be threatened by their presence. We can’t incriminate all men.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have individual wards for different sexes either, just that it doesn’t make me uncomfortable to share the same ward with the opposite sex.[/quote]
Why do we segregate male and females in wards and in prisons?

Quite simply because we deem men (enmasse and in general) a risk to women.

Trans women share the same offending pattern to men, based on current available statistics. So why would you lower the safe guarding requirements for this group compared to men?

I just don't understand what the drivers are to lower the safety protections just because someone has a different gender identify

It's not about individuals, it is about the over all rationale to separate sexes to protect women

Are you advocating fully mixed sex wards? If not why not?

Based on your rationale we can't possibly insinuate that men pose a threat can we?

[quote Rosesareredd]@GoldenBlue
@GCAcademic

You are insinuating that all men pose a threat and we should be threatened by their presence. We can’t incriminate all men.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have individual wards for different sexes either, just that it doesn’t make me uncomfortable to share the same ward with the opposite sex.[/quote]
If your 17 year old self was not uncomfortable on a ward full of middleaged men then I would worry for you. But regardless of how you feel you have no right to dictate that other women do not have privacy, dignity or safety.

[quote Rosesareredd]@GoldenBlue
@GCAcademic

You are insinuating that all men pose a threat and we should be threatened by their presence. We can’t incriminate all men.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have individual wards for different sexes either, just that it doesn’t make me uncomfortable to share the same ward with the opposite sex.[/quote]
Making spaces sex segregated, that you appear to agree with, is not based on an opinion that all men commit crime.

The same way that DBS checks are not based on the opinion that those subject to them are paedophiles.

I agree with the article that to assume criminal intent as a first point of risk is discriminatory.

This is the basis of safeguarding - assume the worst and consider how to mitigate against that. These individuals are men with the same risk of criminality as other men. Men commit 99% of sex crime and women are 80% of the victims. Half of transwomen prisoners are in prison for sex crimes.

And that is before you consider the privacy and dignity of women. Do their feelings not matter or only men who state they are women?

Why are there single sex wards in the first place?