Hospital refuses to operate after woman requests all-female care

I terms of us all being the same, consider this thought experiment.

You're drunk, vulnerable, half dressed and fall asleep in a room. A stranger enters the room.

Would you rather they were a male or female stranger?

I am sure that 99%+ of women would feel significantly safer knowing the stranger were female; pretty sure a good proportion of men would prefer them to be female too.

We are not all the same. Men rape, abuse, and commit violence to people at a far far higher rater than women do. Look at any crime stats.

Sure there are the occasional female sex offender but the vast vast majority are men. Men as a sex class behave differently towards each other and towards women than women as a sex class do. Has been since the dawn of time

Personally I don't see males and females differently considering all can rape and abuse. It's things like this even being positively discussed that open avenue to refusals based of race or religion.

As women are physically incapable of rape as it is defined under UK law, that is quite a leap.

And as for opening the door for refusals based on race or religion, as I said above, I am sure that people who only wanted to be attended by one particular race have their request turned down but are not refused medical attention.

This has been a great thread for showing the homophobic and misogynistic side of people’s attempts to coerce female patients that they have no choice but to accept male people giving them intimate care.

it really cannot be clearer than these last posts. It is remarkable.

@sleepyscientist

It is interesting to see that this supposedly left-wing philosophy believes that private hospitals should be above basic humanity.

Anyone who is silly enough to think that male and female humans are identical has no understanding of the EQ10.

It’s fine that some posters don’t give a shit about the sex of their nursing caregiver but they don’t get to over rule someone else’s non-consent.

Consent isn’t decided by a show of hands.

No means no.

Personally I don't see males and females differently considering all can rape and abuse. It's things like this even being positively discussed that open avenue to refusals based of race or religion. We are all the same

Thanks for spelling out this pure stupidity so plainly.

Why on earth are you dragging sexual orientation into this?

The protected characteristic that is relevant in this scenario is SEX. The nurse’s gender identity is literally immaterial to the patient’s request, only the sex of the staff providing intimate care matters.

No hospital needs to ‘out’ anyone. They simply need to make sure male staff acknowledge and respond to requests for female only care.

Your leveraging of same sex attracted or bisexual staff in this argument is homophobia and biphobic but I am sure you realise the difference. No?

A patient requesting non-LGB care IS based on prejudice and hate. A patient requesting same sex care is legal and legitimate and only a misogynist would declare it hateful.

What happened to ‘the customer is always right’, eh?

A big reason for forking out for private services, whether that be in a health or education or residential care homes is because paying enormous amounts of cash enables a more tailored, individualised plan.

You’ve got it arse backwards if you think a private company should be prioritised over the needs of the people who keep that private company afloat by purchasing the services.

If someone is happy to have mixed-sex intimate care themselves, that is fine.

They do not however have the right to 'give away' the rights of other people to request (and indeed have) single-sex intimate care.

It's also very telling that there are posters on this thread that want to make it appear that requesting single-sex intimate care is somehow unreasonable, difficult for a hospital to provide or so old fashioned that it should be done away with.

I agree with previous posters, they tell on themselves RE their motives with every post that they make.

We are all the same

No, we are not. Requesting female only staff for intimate health care pre and post op is perfectly legal and reasonable, you do not have to be of a particular religion or a sexual abuse survivor to do so and no women should ever have to justify it anyway.

For many intimate procedures on women male doctors ARE chaperoned by a female member of staff anyway so your little 'gotcha' is nothing of the fucking sort.

She did not ask for information about biology she asked for assurance that those treating her pre and post op would be female only.

What about breaks, should staff breaks be organised so she doesn't have to have care from a male in an emergency.

I don't think this case is about what happens in an emergency. It's about what happens during routine pre operative and post operative care. My understanding is that the patient knew that some of the surgical staff would be men and accepted this. What she wanted was to be helped in and out of bed, into the shower etc by a woman.

The hospital is under no obligation to "out" their staff who happen to be homosexual or trans etc.

@sleepyscientist - she asked for her staff to be female. As has been mentioned many times, the Princess Grace treats a lot of devout Muslim women from the Middle East. They too don't want post op care from men. No one needs to give private information.

Surely if you know that your patient would prefer you don't treat her, for whatever reason, you don't, out of respect for her?

I think that readers can see that your posts are bereft of empathy. I genuinely hope you are not a health care provider yourself.

If they had supported the movement that gender has to be genetic you would be all sing their praises.

What on earth does this mean? The claim that gender identities are innate and genetically predetermined sounds like a trans activist philosophical position, to be honest.

Actually never mind. I don't think I can cope with more gender identity theory today.

Make every effort is key. All it take is for the charge nurse that night to be male along with the reg covering the ward. You then need a procedure that requires intimate care say a catheter or suturing of that region as an emergency. What are you going to do? A) disturb another ward to find a female or b) accept gender doesn't matter? What if a male does it with a chaperone, is that acceptable?

Well we don't know, as they didn't bother to discuss it.

Make every effort is key. All it take is for the charge nurse that night to be male along with the reg covering the ward. You then need a procedure that requires intimate care say a catheter or suturing of that region as an emergency. What are you going to do? A) disturb another ward to find a female or b) accept gender doesn't matter? What if a male does it with a chaperone, is that acceptable?

What about breaks, should staff breaks be organised so she doesn't have to have care from a male in an emergency. She asked for a guarantee that isn't going to happen. She also asked for information staff shouldn't have to give about biology.

It's not about rape or abuse survivors being forgotten it's about practicality and changing view on gender. Personally I don't see males and females differently considering all can rape and abuse. It's things like this even being positively discussed that open avenue to refusals based of race or religion. We are all the same

I'm referring to the act of discrimination against her protected gender critical belief, rather than the specific laws covering healthcare mentioned by Clymene, which are also key.

Yes, there seems to be a misconception that private companies don't have to adhere to the Equality Act. It rather caught CGD Europe and Garden Court Chambers out, didn't it?

The regulations around single sex healthcare apply to all providers, private and NHS:

The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014: Regulation 10
• 10(1) Service users must be treated with dignity and respect
This states providers must have regard to the following guidance:
• When providing intimate or personal care, providers must make every reasonable effort to make sure that they respect people's preferences about who delivers their care and treatment, such as requesting staff of a specified gender.

Only 10% of nurses are male. There is no need for any woman to receive post operative care by a male nurse, no matter what his identity.

Please. Do keep on posting as this really does show the complete lack of empathy for women and girls need's and the prioritisation of males.

I really do think your posts do a great job.

If a hospital showed that it accommodated both the woman's need for single sex care (which is available under the law we have been told, that patients can refuse care from anyone and make requests for single sex care) while also providing a work environment that did not discriminate against staff for their trans identities, then yes, we would be giving them plaudits.

You seem to think that all male staff should be free to ignore a female patient's request for single sex care.

And you have again shown you have not a shred of empathy for women and girls who are sexual abuse and rape survivors. Seriously .... well done...

@Helleofabore when healthcare is on its knees providing trans should not even be a discussion. It is about saving lives.

This is a private company we are talking about, they choose to protect their staff from views that they do not support good on them. If they had supported the movement that gender has to be genetic you would be all sing their praises.

She could have gone back on the NHS waiting list who would have accommodated her views as best it could. Instead she tried to bully a private company by going to the press.

And yet we don't actually know if the staff member in question was actually trans or not, the patient presumed them to be from a brief moment of eye contact?

Maybe he wasn't, but the issue is that the hospital proceeded to deny her life-saving healthcare.

I know there is no comparison between someone wanting their intimate care to be provided by someone of the same sex and a racist, but do hospitals refuse healthcare to racists or do they just say that they cannot insist on their treatment being provided by one particular race?

And yet we don't actually know if the staff member in question was actually trans or not, the patient presumed them to be from a brief moment of eye contact?

I don't know about you, but the sex of most "trans women" is blindingly obvious to me.