To think mixed sex adult wards should be banned

[roarfeckingroarr]

Please could someone in the NHS or otherwise explain why women are expected to sleep in the same room and share bathrooms with strange men they don't know while at their most vulnerable?

Is it all just down to cost / overwhelmed services or is this an intentional policy?

This is on the bank of the thread with the poor woman whose 16 year old daughter was on a ward with adult men, some drunk.

Don't get me started on men staying all night in the postnatal wards.

I do agree that in a world with unlimited money and resources we would have single sex wards but what do people suggest as an alternative for the flex a mixed sex ward offers (change from 1 male bay, 3 female bays to 2 of each etc.)?

Yes my experience . Every hospital has a variable number of single rooms ( infectious conditions / dying etc) .
In my present mixed speciality Ward there are 11 beds ( 5 single, one double , 1 4 bed. Funnily enough the patients waiting for discharge / having rehab using prefer the 4 bed as there is camaraderie.

In the last hospital I worked , we had a 22 bed ward, 2 bays of 4 . The other 14 were single rooms with en-suite bathroom. NHS hospital. All wards were similar.

So many convinced only bad things will happen if a woman is sharing a ward with men. My friend (female) recently stayed in hospital for a week and was the only female in a male ward and loved it (the banter etc).

That said I think men and women should be separate in hospitals and toilets etc.

I have visited hospitals.in the US where all patients are in single rooms with solid doors and walls, no glass. I would have felt very very vulnerable in one of those.as a patient. Anyone could wander along and in to the room quickly and it is unlikely the busy staff would notice. Similarly patients could slip, fall over etc and not be found for a long time. I much prefer the bay rooms we have here in the UK. Not great for sleeping but there are always people looking out for each other.

Christ, I think I’d rather be flashed or left to expire on a trolley in the corridor than endure the all-male “banter” ward.

It’s not just about seeing anatomy though, is it? Unfortunately, there are creepy men who will be delighted to have access to vulnerable girls/women to expose themselves to.

Of course, most aren’t like that, most would be mortified if they inadvertently showed their arse to the person in the next bay. But most (all?) women know that some men can be opportunistic creeps.

Why make things easier for them?

Why is "bad things" happening the bar..

Don't men and women both deserve privacy and dignity where possible?

I remember when dd was 14/15 and had ti stay over night on a mixed paeds bay. There was only one other patient a teenage boy who did absolutely nothing wrong and didn't so much as look or speak to dd. But I'm.sure he was as uncomfortable with the situation ( female teen, me a female parent plus his mum) as dd was.

Its not just about behaviour its simply about vulnerability and privacy which surely everyone deserves.

Which specialities do you suggest hospitals get rid of to allow their wards to be made into the all-male or all-female counterpart of other specialities? I'm genuinely interested in how people think it's possible to have separate wards without needing more space or staff.

Why is it the responsibility of women here to solve (as usual) all the issues that are nothing to do with them , in order to justify being able to be kept safe akd not be forced to unconsentually see men half naked ?

Why is it people are meant to feel guilty and made responsible for other receiving even worse care by having the audacity to expect mot to be totally humiliated at their most vulnerable.

How about less time and money spent on paying lobby groups to tell them.how to shit all over the rights of every minority group, less time amd money spent gaslighting women that their assault couldn't have possibly happened. Theres a few grand saved right there.

For those doubting single rooms in NHS hospitals.
I’ve been put into a room on my own twice during hospital stays. They were known as side wards. The 1st time was after my youngest was born. I had a post birth eclampsia fit. I was moved off the main ward into the side ward. It had a toilet and washing facilities, there for three nights and then moved back to the main ward. It was close to the nurses station.
The 2nd time was after being admitted in an emergency with uraemia due to a stuck kidney stone. I went straight into it after triage in A&E and X-rays. I spent the whole stay of five nights in there. It had an en-suite.

I'm giggling to myself imagining a lot of enraged posters reaching off-the-scale enragement when their husband, son, father etc. dies in A&E because the only bed available is in a female-only ward/floor.

No doubt they'd then go on to sue the NHS for implementing their very own demands.

There are mixed sex wards, but not mixed sex bays unless a high dependency setting like ITU where this cannot be avoided. There should be no need for men and women to share the same bathroom facilities.
The bed pressures are simply enormous at the moment, it’s hard to comprehend unless you’re working in it.
I work at a large central London teaching hospital. All wards are mixed but no mixed bays. I think this keeps flow moving as much as possible.

Speaking from just an infection control perspective (part of my job) hospitals are a fucking nightmare. The layouts are too old, too cramped, whilst also having far too much wasted space. It’s nigh impossible to contain anything (C.diff, for example), there’s too much stuff acting as a vector.

Most of them need to be rebuilt and the old ones knocked down.

I was one of those women a year ago today and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. #sorrynotsorry

These types of offences are in so many cases a precursor to far more serious crimes like assault rape and murder. Just consider the offences of the two pieces of shit that killed Libby squire and Sarah everard respectively. Utter scum. Keep men OUT of womens’ spaces.

So selfish

That setup means the men can freely wander amidst female patients' beds while the women are asleep and entirely unprotected.

Where I live there are mixed wards, single bays, unisex toilets and I have never heard of an issue. My DM was in an actual mixed ward in the city hospital a few years ago - she couldn't have cared less, and once again, I haven't heard of any issues. Is it just in the UK where every man is suspected of being a sex pest?

You do know that throughout the world many men ARE sex offenders?

Many of them end up in hospital.

I had my own for spinal surgery, even had an opening window
About the only bonus of being immunocompromised is they get a bit concerned at putting you on a ward so I got a room

Something else you should be aware of, registered paedophiles go to hospital too. The nursing staff will know, but confidentiality n all that. So please don't let your children run around the wards at visiting time. You'd be surprised how many parents do. Nurses only have one set of eyes, and none on the back of their heads.

Then there are the murders. You won't always be able to tell who they are either. Though, the bored looking guy constantly by their side is sometimes a giveaway. Often they are the nicest patients to nurse for some reason. Less entitled attitude or something.

Oh and security don't do shit. They take their sweet time to come when called, then say "can't touch 'em". That's one area that definitely can be improved on. Security on the wards.

You are ‘giggling’ about someone dying in A&E? Really? How old are you and WTF is wrong with you?

So the male patient must be left in the corridor ?

OP I do agree, and the previous thread was awful. I honestly think a lot of those posters who were minimising the situation of a girl alone on a mixed ward, could not possibly have been parents of a teenage girl. Probably they weren’t even parents. They were there to stir things up and make a point (and we can guess what that was).

Who is going to look after the baby, then?
There was no possible way I could reach my newborn from the cot or put her back in during the first two nights and days after the birth, so my husband had to be there to do that, in order for me to feed her. Many women are traumatised after the birth and need emotional support from their partners, too.

As you know, unless you have a major comprehension deficit, I was giggling at the law of unintended consequences. You know, when demands are made to satisfy a group who seem incapable of seeing potential consequences other than those they demand.

Fuckwits will be fuckwits, obvs.