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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think pregnant women shouldn't be filmed during scans without expressly giving consent?

103 replies

Greypaw · 29/11/2017 13:38

It's come to light that cameras were installed in a maternity unit in Cambridge and women were filmed while having scans without explicitly having been told it was happening. It seems this was because the film company was making a documentary about stillbirths and were hoping to catch people at the moment of being told their baby had died. At that point they would be told they had been filmed and permission would be sought to use the footage.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/parents-horror-after-hospital-secretly-11606165

I understand it's important to raise awareness about stillbirth, but surely a note next to a camera isn't adequate when it comes to consenting to being filmed at a time you'd assumed would be private?

OP posts:

bluescreen · 29/11/2017 15:12

poolCam Did you read about it properly OP?

The title and your post seem at odds with everything else written.

Not sure what you're objecting to in the title or post, poolCam. Have you listened to the BBC Cambridgeshire story or read the Mirror article? Women are filmed, whether or not anyone subsequently downloads and views it, as the camera is running all the time. The production team seem to rely on implied consent to this. The A4 notices are presumably enough to cover their backsides legally, but in a situation where people are stressed and possibly grieving and have an expectation of confidentiality, they are hardly morally adequate. The documentary makers will approach patients for specific consent where they think there's something of interest. There doesn't seem to be an option for women to ask for the camera to be turned off.

WonderTweek · 29/11/2017 15:24

I can't believe what I'm reading. I've been to the "bad news room" before and if I'd been filmed I'd be beyond livid. Surely in that situation you wouldn't be thinking clearly enough to decide either way anyway?
Masking it as "raising awareness" is a massive cop out too.

user1471426142 · 29/11/2017 15:42

I’d be furious. I expressly forbade the bounty lady from coming anywhere near me on the ward let alone a camera. Even to walk into a room a be confronted by a camera when you’re vulnerable would be off putting. I’d want the right to be able to go into a different appointment room/ cameras to be turned off not just the right to ask them to scrub footage I didn’t want taken in the first place. I’d have been deeply uncomfortable with this for a normal scan. If facing terrible news I’d be raging at having to go through the process of ensuring that footage was never seen. This is so very intrusive. Surely expresss consent should be obtained before anything was filmed?

Schlimbesserung · 29/11/2017 15:44

I didn't say this before because I didn't want to appear hysterical. However, I've been think about it and I now don't care!
After my child's stillbirth, I genuinely wanted to die. Not in a dramatic woe-is-me sort of way, but it was definitely on my To Do list every day and if my husband had been watching less carefully I would have done it. If I had discovered that there was a recording of her death or of the moment we were told that she couldn't be revived (which somebody thought was suitable for broadcast FFS!), I would have felt unable to live. I felt humiliated and betrayed when the midwife looked at the photos of my child and took some out before I saw them, and I was fully aware that those photos were being taken.
At such a delicate and traumatic time, knowing that someone wanted to show your lowest moment on television would just be too much some some people. This isn't raising awareness, it's gruesome gawking at unguarded pain.

SueSueDonahue · 29/11/2017 16:06

I can't formulate my thoughts on this. It's was so horrific when it happened to me.

The signs seem utterly misleading against the other information. If I'd seen that specific sign, and not a physical camera crew, I wouldn't have asked. The idea of continuous filming would never occur to me, based on those signs.

itusedtobeverydifferent · 29/11/2017 16:06

It's just sad. A very sad example of the media and the technology age.

LurkingHusband · 29/11/2017 16:14

It's just sad. A very sad example of the media and the technology age.

I'd say it's a perfect example of how Jeremy Hunt is going to squeeze every penny out of the NHS before it collapses.

I wonder what private clinics they filmed in ?

AugustRose · 29/11/2017 16:30

This isn't raising awareness, it's gruesome gawking at unguarded pain
I completely agree and share your pain.

Since commenting earlier I have also been thinking about the staff. The MWs who were with me and told me 'I'm so sorry there is no heartbeat' were gentle and compassionate, and the younger one who saw me first was visibly shaken (it could have been her first experience too for all I know). If they are also having to worry about how they react when giving someone this terrible news, because they are being watched and judged, it could make an awful situation even worse.

I am passionate about raising awareness of stillbirth but filming continuously with implied consent is not good and a breach of privacy.

Flumplet · 29/11/2017 16:34

Absolutely disgraceful. If I found I had been filmed at such a moment I would want it destroyed immediately. That's just disgusting it's a private moment that nobody needs to see.

lalalalyra · 29/11/2017 17:28

The documentary makers will approach patients for specific consent where they think there's something of interest.

This implies a clear breach of confidentiality imo. Otherwise how do they know where there might be something if interest?

And how do they get in touch with people? Surely they can't ask them that day in the department? (And surely they haven't stopped so low as to allowing the tv people to be hanging around the waiting area?)

Spikeyball · 29/11/2017 17:59

I've had a stillbirth. I think this is truly awful. I remember the moment vividly and I would have been horrified and very angry if I had found out it had been filmed.

fuzzywuzzy · 29/11/2017 18:00

Omg I had a MMC, this would have completely pushed me over the edge!

EmilyfromLondon · 27/12/2017 21:14

I'm surprised this issue hasn't caused more of a fuss than it has. But apparently the Information Commissioner is now looking into it - whether that toothless organisation will do anything remains to be seen

goose1964 · 27/12/2017 21:28

As far as I can see you are going to be scanned and you see a notice saying you can object to being filmed and they won't. You don't say anything because you're expecting everything is going to be fine but it isn't .You are devastated but you are then asked if you will allow them to broadcast your reaction, which is not what you thought was going to be filmed. Surely they could ask people after the event when the devastation is not so raw.

Schlimbesserung · 27/12/2017 21:38

Surely they could ask people after the event when the devastation is not so raw.
With a stillbirth, that moment is unlikely to ever exist. Eleven years afterwards, it is still raw for me. What they are proposing is to tell bereaved parents that the worst moment of their lives still exists in some form , and there are people who would like to share it with the nation.

ILoveTheEU · 27/12/2017 21:40

24 hrs in A&E is the same, though, isn't it? Cameras always there and on in many areas. Then there is CCTV outside, too.

Hygge · 27/12/2017 21:42

I saw this posted on Facebook a couple of weeks ago, and my understanding of it was that there is a large camera right above the woman being scanned, and a small notice on the wall that mentions CCTV being used in the area in large bold type, and then something about the film crew underneath.

I think it's horrific. The day of the scan where we were told our baby had died was one of the worst of our lives.

I wouldn't want that moment caught on camera, with or without my prior knowledge.

There are so many moments that they would have filmed that just make me feel sick to think of a stranger watching and editing so our reaction to our baby's death would make good TV.

A poster on the wall is not gaining informed consent before the filming, and it's unbelievably cruel to think asking for it afterwards is a good idea.

EmilyfromLondon · 27/12/2017 21:43

24 hrs in A&E is the same, though, isn't it?
No. The only people being filmed are those who have given consent, apart from the odd unconscious one. In the Rosie, everyone was being routinely filmed, without consent, even though they could have been asked for consent. And all the staff would have been complicit in the unconsented filming by not advising people.

ILoveTheEU · 27/12/2017 21:47

On 24 hrs in A&E, there are always ppl in background with faces blurred out. Plus parts of people's bodies but noticeably not their faces (background people, not the people in the main stories). They must be ppl who didn't give permission.

expatinscotland · 27/12/2017 21:47

Absolutely awful! Indefensible.

TabbyMumz · 27/12/2017 21:49

Surely they would have filmed patients private bits? How is this allowed?

AdiosPeaceOfRoast · 27/12/2017 21:50

How about if they just don’t put recording cameras in a room where women are undressed and at their most vulnerable physically and emotionally? Then we don’t need to debate the finer points and mechanics of when it’s appropriate to ask if they mind the worst day of their life being filmed, viewed and broadcast.

Just a fucking thought.

EmilyfromLondon · 27/12/2017 21:51

Surely they would have filmed patients private bits? How is this allowed?
Its not allowed, which is why they're in the shit. But the doctors and lawyers will wriggle the hospital out of it

Fruitcorner123 · 27/12/2017 21:52

I saw the notice when i went in for reduced movements. Assumess it was some kind of training video. This is so appalling i am really shocked they allowed this at the Rosie.

EmilyfromLondon · 27/12/2017 21:58

@Fruitcorner123
Sorry to hear that. Are you taking any action / making a complaint to them or anyone else about it?

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