Male midwife facing 29 charges of misconduct,

Or we finally hold men accountable fir their disgusting behaviour. ALWAYS
So it doesn’t happen anymore.

We’ve had the MeToo movement. We need more if a wake up call. The attitude of the Police towards women. The attitude of HCP towards women. Etc etc

Of course we can ask for more women to be trained. But what we need to a change at the level of the society.
Starting with acknowledging the true depth of how awful men’s behaviour is towards women.

Surely if there aren’t enough Drs to accommodate what women want then the solution isn’t to provide a sub-par service and try to quash any requests for the ideal service? Surely we recruit more female midwives and Drs for female services?

A link for the "not my lovely husband", "why would any man go through all that training just to assault women?" brigade.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4465656-Was-I-molested?pg=3

What really made my blood boil was the line about "While female students are awed by helping deliver their first baby, men can miss out."

Er, so what? Why should it even matter that male medical students feel like they are "missing out" - what about how the labouring woman feels? Maybe they can go watch it on YouTube and leave the poor labouring woman in peace.

I don't even think women are "deluded" in this respect. It's well known that the fields of o&g are women-dominated. You'd be deluded to go into the field as a man, today, because so many women will opt for all-female teams as that becomes an option. It's a done deal, really. What trusts should be focussing on when recruiting is maternal outcomes for black women.

As for midwifery, agree with others that it should only be a job open for women. When I was in labour it was the presence of women that was so comforting. It's a long, often intimate process, and it would have felt completely different with a strange man in the room.

Men should not be allowed to train as midwives, end of. Tbh I'm an ideal world id extend that to anything obstetrics/gynaecology. Or it should at least be ensured that if requested, a woman gets a female HCP if that is her preference. I'd actively incentivise female HCP into areas of medicine where women feel more comfortable with another woman, not a man.

What really pisses me off with male midwives as well is that from the dawn of time, midwifery was the sole area of healthcare that was the domain of women. Midwife= with women- men were actively kept out of the whole process. But as per usual, their typical male entitlement wins over, and they can't even leave one thing to women.

If the NHS cannot provide it, that's a problem with the NHS. However, I am not going to stop asking.

Bloody hell greenmarlin

www.latimes.com/health/la-me-male-gynos-20180307-htmlstory.html

That article is something else....

"Chelliah thinks he can be a sensitive obstetrician-gynecologist even though he’s a man. But he has no choice but to comply."

"Yet the job can feel cruel. Chelliah recently noticed a sign on a patient room with a picture of a baby’s foot. Above it, “Female providers only.” He kept walking."

It's really quite amazing that people are offended by the idea women want a female doctor.

"It sends a horrible message to men who might have a nascent interest in OB-GYN that’s promptly quashed,” said Dr. Carl Smith, head of the OB-GYN department at the University of Nebraska Medical Center."

Surely, the patient is at the centre of the medical situation, not the doctor, patients aren't there for the benefit of the doctor!

For those midwives on the thread who say that women in your trust are asked if they are ok with a male midwife- is this only when admitted to hospital for birth? I have in my notes that I am only meant to see one midwife I know very well, due to ptsd from trauma from my first birth. My last scheduled appointment I turned up and the only midwife at our small community unit was actually a male and never met him before…no warning or question about options and no chaperone offered.

Why didn’t any of the other staff in the room at the time of the c sections he was photographing not stop him or report him immediately? Why would a single chaperone dissuade someone who is willing to behave like this in front of a whole theatre of colleagues?

So how come there's simultaneously extra staff to chaperone but not enough to request a same sex dr.

Once again effort only made to pander to males as opposed to help the women

Those arguing for same sex doctors seem to assume the NHS is swimming in appointments and doctors and has the capacity to arrange shifts and appointments by sex. I'm afraid you're deluded. Waiting lists are bad enough as it is without the extra headaches that policy would create.

It read the whole thread and I’m sure it’s been said before. But if I want to see a GP about an issue I feel uncomfortable about I ask to see a woman. I’m feel able to make this request because I’m not time pressured or feeling vulnerable. My cognitive, logical (pre frontal cortex) is able to help me make this decision and make it happen.

When In Labour I felt like I was dying. Repeatedly. I was not thinking logically, I was functioning from my primitive brain. I was vulnerable by the very fact that I was in excruciating pain. In this situation I would probably have said it’s fine to have a male midwife when actually I would not want one. In fact a similar thing happened, there was a miscommunication and rather than having 1 student midwife at my birth I had two. I was asked if this was ok but I had been on Labour for 10 hours was having back to back contractions and to be honest I could have been asked if I minded having the local choir there and I would have said yes.

The point is vulnerability. We know that women feel vulnerable throughout the whole process from conception to post birth. Therefore we have to be sensitive to the fact that they may not feel strong enough to say no to something they do not actually want.

It makes me feel physically unwell just the idea of a man attending me in Labour. That is not prejudiced against men. It’s my natural instinct. My instinct to keep me safe.

I think a very weird thing happens to me each time I've gone to hospital to give birth which is that I put all my usual feelings of modesty/dignity/privacy/boundaries to one side and kind of disassociate from what is happening in order to get on with having the baby.

So, when I was asked for baby #3 if I minded having this midwife do a sweep, (he happened to be male) I said that'd be fine, thinking of course it will be just like other sweeps.

But it turned out that it really wasn't. It was ridiculously painful, his hands were big, his fingers jabbing, it felt like he was scrummaging around and he was cold and unsympathetic. More than anything it felt like an assault. I can't even remember if anyone else was in the room. Ugh.

And, perhaps unsurprisingly, it didn't even work.

My male community obstetrics consultant on the other hand was absolutely lovely, kind, helpful respectful, but even he recognised that some of the inpatient male consultants were awfully unsympathetic to women.
It was highly noticeable that they were quite different at times when my doctor husband was not around...

I can't understand why you would choose to be a medical specialist in a setting where you don't like your patient group. (Well, I can but I don't like the answer that I come up with) Indeed I found a couple of the male consultants actively hostile.

One in particular went round with a (silent) female HCP who then quickly briefed another midwife outside the door ("she's another one crying because Mr B said X") who had to go around to all the women after the ward round, apologising for his rudeness and promising things would be OK and that my wishes would be taken into consideration. "He's really a very good doctor" she said.

No, he really isn't.

I'm another one who started to write a letter of complaint to the hospital only to be overwhelmed with the amount of stuff with a new baby and other young children and drop it.

I think there absolutely needs to be a better feedback loop at the time so that concerns can be raised more quickly and lessons learnt more easily.

[quote coldfeetmama]@WorkingClassWoman of course I have concerns over the entitlement of anyone - male or female

I can only speak for the one male midwife I have on my Team and I cannot fault him

I have worked in healthcare for over 30 years and have seen many inappropriate things down to male and female colleagues

Theft / drug abuse / fraud / bullying / abuse

I was part of the process when a male Dr inappropriate but not blatant behaviour was reported , investigated and struck off

I absolutely agree with previous comments - report anything suspicious of anyone in a position straight away - gut instinct is a wonderful thing [/quote]
I'm glad your colleague is someone you appreciate the good practice of. But there's several threads around the board today of what happens when this case by case situation runs up against reality, and what it in effect means is that inevitably a woman is put in a situation that she does not want to be in and does not willingly consent to, because the male person's desire to be in that place and have that access has been placed above her needs. Women are being pressured to put their own feelings and preferences aside and be nice, to try and understand that however they feel this male should be accepted and tolerated in this situation, to accept that it's this male or nothing at all.

This is not ok. There's a pp on the thread who found that despite not wanting a male midwife she had to accept and tolerate one because other women in labour were absolutely unable to and their boundaries couldn't be leaned on, but hers could.

I requested that only female midwives attend me when I gave birth. It wasn't a problem, as my area didn't have any male midwives at that point (I know they had had one a few years earlier).

I also requested an all-female medical team if at all possible, should interventions become necessary during the birth process.

In the end I did need a couple of interventions from an obstetrician, who was female. The medical team was entirely made up of women, to my relief. Whether that was because of my birth preferences, I'm not sure, but I'm glad it was that way.

Obviously if my baby had been at risk I would have accepted care from a male obstetrician. However, my first choice would always be for a woman.

I also believe that men should be able to be attended by a male HCP for intimate procedures such as prostate exams, if that is their preference.

I'm inclined to believe that midwifery really isn't a good profession for men. I listened to a podcast with a male midwife once, who sounded absolutely lovely, and I probably would have been okay with him in the room - but I still would prefer to be attended to by a lovely woman midwife than a lovely man midwife.

@WorkingClassWoman of course I have concerns over the entitlement of anyone - male or female

I can only speak for the one male midwife I have on my Team and I cannot fault him

I have worked in healthcare for over 30 years and have seen many inappropriate things down to male and female colleagues

Theft / drug abuse / fraud / bullying / abuse

I was part of the process when a male Dr inappropriate but not blatant behaviour was reported , investigated and struck off

I absolutely agree with previous comments - report anything suspicious of anyone in a position straight away - gut instinct is a wonderful thing

@coldfeetmama That fact that male midwives need to be chaperoned pretty much all the time is also a waste of resource. We wouldn’t need this if we just had female midwives. This is a different scenario to let’s say a male GP, where they may occasionally need a chaperone.

Caveat I don't know anything more about Chris Butt than I’ve read in the press. But the sheer fucking entitlement of assuming his wishes should come ahead of all those women wanting women only support with breast feeding has told me volumes.

Chris Butt for example, who demanded access to a specific woman only breastfeeding group run by an external organisation the NCT not the nhs Even though he was offered an opportunity to attend the same type of session that had women who hadn’t specifically asked to attend a woman only group, which he didnt attend. He had no compassion for why those woman asked for and paid for a woman only group. He was just all about his demands *and he was apparently backed by his course supervisor in his demands.

When I started my midwifery training 11 years ago, our course leader was very outspoken that men should not be midwives and she'd never let one onto the course. I hope to god she's stuck to that and hasn't been bullied into accepting any for the sake of "diversity and inclusion".

Chaperone can be a HCA , an admin person , another midwife or that patient relative

I'm not sure that a patient's relative should be used as a chaperone. They may not understand what is going on or know how to raise a concern. The Cambridge paediatric consultant who was a paedophile abused children behind curtains with a parent in the room.