Mask shamed (disability), complain? (Some TMI)

[Maskwoes]

I've NCed for this thread as I expect the details I share will make the case highly identifiable. MNHQ can confirm I'm a member of some years.

I have several disabilities, physical and psychological. I am unable to wear a face mask because I have PTSD from sexual trauma as a young teen. I'm sorry for TMI but it's relevant to the case - I was raped and penetrated in my mouth too. Due to this nothing can cover my mouth, it's an instant panic attack.

I had to attend a hospital yesterday - minor injuries unit. I approached to book in and was instantly ordered to put on a mask, one was offered, to which I replied I was unable to do so due to a mental health condition. She fetched a nurse who asked why I was refusing to wear one, and that if I did not then I would be removed from the unit. This area is very open and very public, with other patients being seen at the side of me.

I was becoming extremely anxious at this point and explained that I have PTSD. They wanted details. I was essentially railroaded into detailing what happened as a teen. I was told to wait and then taken into a room with a doctor and another nurse. I again had to explain in detail my PTSD. I was then offered a visor type mask which I found very claustrophobic and in all honesty unbearable.

I was then triaged, assessed and treated. In total I explained everything three times, had an hour-long major panic attack in the car afterwards and have been very on edge, upset, and on the edge of more panic attacks. I had two more overnight and haven't slept, am very upset.

I'm extremely pissed off in truth and am wondering whether I should complain, through which channels, how far to push and what the outcome would likely be.

I'm posting this in AIBU as I want the brutally honest views!

Thank you for reading.

[quote ILikeGinAndCake]@TheStuffedPenguin my thoughts exactly, compo face ready. Can’t you just complain so that they handle the situation better next time? Why do you need to seek a legal case and compensation?[/quote]
Where did the op say compensation?

@TheStuffedPenguin

OP did not take responsibility for his own care regarding the visit . All of this could have been avoided !

Yes, if the staff had shown a little bit of sensitivity! How exactly could OP avoid a) having to go to the MIU and b) being asked inappropriate questions in a public area?

and what about your own accountability and integrity to ensure that this visit took place smoothly ?

You mean hand sanitising at every station from the building entrance throughout the three hour visit? The giving in and wearing a visor mask because I was utterly broken? The wearing of a prominent sunflower lanyard on my shirt? My accountability and integrity are not in question here.

What do you not understand? I am exempt in guidance the Government has provided.

1. Thegovernmentadviceisnottochallengepeopletowearafacecovering

This is for GOOD REASON. If you do so, you and your employees may be PERSONALLY LIABLE for AN OFFENCE liable on summary conviction to pay a fine of up to £5,000 - section 112 (Aiding contraventions) of the Equality Act 2010 AN ACT OF DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION and be ordered to pay to any individual who suffers injury to feelings compensation between £900 and £9,000 - section 119 (Remedies) of the Equality Act 2010

1. Youcannotchallengemeaboutmydecisionnottowearafacecovering

You are not permitted to ask for a medical certificate. The only people who are entitled to ask about whether or why someone has a reasonable excuse are enforcement officers i.e.  police officers  police community support officers  persons designated by local authorities or by the Secretary of State for the purpose of enforcement

I am very sorry you had to go through this. You can download exemption cards from here www.civicmc.nhs.uk/files/2020/06/Face-Covering-Exemption-Cards.pdf

It would be a good idea to carry one around with you.

and what about your own accountability and integrity to ensure that this visit took place smoothly ?

Bar avoiding breaking their limb what exactly more could OP have done?

Lanyard present.
Explained PTSD diagnosis.
Explained the circumstances that caused them PTSD.
Asked for private room.

Then explained things again 3 more times and tried their best to comply with the face visor.

What more could OP have done?

I think part of the problem here is that it seems the hospital didn't have a well planned alternative, covid-safe (to some degree) procedure ready to switch to, for dealing with any patient without a mask. That could have been to get you to wait outside in a specific area, to talk to you on the phone to take initial details, then to take you to a separate, well ventilated area away from other patients...

It is understandable for them not to want to just let you carry on unmasked into areas with other patients - patients wearing a mask is a new infection control requirement, and hospital staff of all people are the most likely instinctively not to want to give way on infection control. That's why they need a well organised alternative plan to switch to for people without masks - not just "keep pushing until the patient gives in and puts a mask on".

Without that alternative plan, and unwilling to give up on an infection-control measure, they ended up treating you terribly by making you recount what happened to you multiple times and with an audience. That was very wrong and traumatic for you and should never have happened.

The hospital definitely need to know exactly what went wrong here, although ideally with a 'problem solving' approach rather than an approach that might lead to the hospital conveniently blaming individual staff members rather than addressing systemic problems.

I can completely understand that some people can't wear a face covering.

At the same time, those people will present additional risk to the people in the enclosed space with them and that's a problem, especially in a health care setting.

What provision have the NHS made for this? Presumably anyone unable to wear a mask needs to be isolated on arrival and then all staff wear full protective PPE when dealing with them? Is that the protocol?

There needs to be an easy way for exempt people to identify themselves to staff though.

He should have communicated early on that there was an issue and that he was exempt , drawn attention to the lanyard and should have had a Face Covering Exempt Card . Simple.

eeeyoresmiles

Cross posted with you. I completely agree.

OP did not take responsibility for his own care regarding the visit . All of this could have been avoided !

How exactly? By avoiding whatever caused the possibly broken body part in the first place? No one should have to explain what was done to them in a public setting.

I've worked in some very insensitive public sector areas and even my most twattish colleagues would have demonstrated more sensitivity.

Good luck with your case OP. I'm another PTSD sufferer who has flashbacks from my attempts to wear masks. At the moment I can't access health care because I've heard too many similar stories. Plus my GP is withholding my sleeping pills until she's seen me in person but I'd have to wear a mask...

Sorry this happened to you. Mask shaming of the disabled has become a thing of late:

It's just so predictable really

@Maskwoes

and what about your own accountability and integrity to ensure that this visit took place smoothly ?

You mean hand sanitising at every station from the building entrance throughout the three hour visit? The giving in and wearing a visor mask because I was utterly broken? The wearing of a prominent sunflower lanyard on my shirt? My accountability and integrity are not in question here.

What do you not understand? I am exempt in guidance the Government has provided.

1. Thegovernmentadviceisnottochallengepeopletowearafacecovering

This is for GOOD REASON. If you do so, you and your employees may be PERSONALLY LIABLE for AN OFFENCE liable on summary conviction to pay a fine of up to £5,000 - section 112 (Aiding contraventions) of the Equality Act 2010 AN ACT OF DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION and be ordered to pay to any individual who suffers injury to feelings compensation between £900 and £9,000 - section 119 (Remedies) of the Equality Act 2010

1. Youcannotchallengemeaboutmydecisionnottowearafacecovering

You are not permitted to ask for a medical certificate. The only people who are entitled to ask about whether or why someone has a reasonable excuse are enforcement officers i.e.  police officers  police community support officers  persons designated by local authorities or by the Secretary of State for the purpose of enforcement

Why did you not think ahead ? Why did you not prepare ? You are going to encounter this on public transport , shops etc ? Is this going to happen every time or are you going to equip yourself with what you need ?

@eeeyoresmiles

I think part of the problem here is that it seems the hospital didn't have a well planned alternative, covid-safe (to some degree) procedure ready to switch to, for dealing with any patient without a mask. That could have been to get you to wait outside in a specific area, to talk to you on the phone to take initial details, then to take you to a separate, well ventilated area away from other patients...

It is understandable for them not to want to just let you carry on unmasked into areas with other patients - patients wearing a mask is a new infection control requirement, and hospital staff of all people are the most likely instinctively not to want to give way on infection control. That's why they need a well organised alternative plan to switch to for people without masks - not just "keep pushing until the patient gives in and puts a mask on".

Without that alternative plan, and unwilling to give up on an infection-control measure, they ended up treating you terribly by making you recount what happened to you multiple times and with an audience. That was very wrong and traumatic for you and should never have happened.

The hospital definitely need to know exactly what went wrong here, although ideally with a 'problem solving' approach rather than an approach that might lead to the hospital conveniently blaming individual staff members rather than addressing systemic problems.

Fabulous post, yes.

That this happened (the digging into my history) three times shows this is a systemic problem, not an individual staff member problem, imo.

@TheStuffedPenguin that's bullshit and you know it. If that were true there wouldn't have been a need for him to repeat 3 times what the issues are and still have PPE imposed on him.

If it was that easy, the visible lanyard around his neck, then subsequent explanation of PTSD and why the first time would've been enough.

Even if still upsetting, I bet OP wouldn't have been on here today if would've all been sorted on the first go. It wasn't, and you insisting it would've been is disingenuous at best and victim blaming at worst.

It's a sad state of affairs when even a hospital setting disregards mental health, but not surprising. As a medical setting they should be more than aware that for some, they cannot safely wear a mask, and should have a protocol in place. I agree that if it was a pre planned appointment perhaps someone could take the chance to phone beforehand etc and find out what the protocol is; but in this setting where people will be coming in unexpectedly, they should have a procedure in place.

@TheStuffedPenguin

He should have communicated early on that there was an issue and that he was exempt , drawn attention to the lanyard and should have had a Face Covering Exempt Card . Simple.

Err, I said I was exempt due to a mental health issue to the first staff member I saw. You would've preferred me to communicate via telekinesis during the journey, yes?

Why did you not think ahead ? Why did you not prepare ?

How do you prepare for a broken limb? This is becoming ridiculous.

Why did you not think ahead ? Why did you not prepare ? You are going to encounter this on public transport , shops etc ? Is this going to happen every time or are you going to equip yourself with what you need ?

So what do we need?

A medical letter most GPs have said they won't provide? My psychiatrist wrote me one but for all we know the OP isn't seeing one.

@Maskwoes I'm sorry for the way you were treated.

I don't agree with the way that our Government has handled this at all. I agree with previous posters that there needs to be some kind of official exemption rather than a self-certified one. People are scared of catching Covid-19, so everyone who can wear a mask needs to wear a mask, and the people who legitimately can't wear a mask need more protection from other people's fear and anger than their own word.

I think it's fair enough to be hacked off with some joker who refuses to wear a mask because he doesn't want to, but the problem is, it's impossible to tell the difference between that kind of person, and between you. In a civilised society, we could operate on an honesty basis where if someone says they have a hidden disability we take them at face value, but this country is an absolute car crash at the moment. I honestly don't know if we've ever been this divided. The trouble with sunflower lanyards is people who shouldn't be wearing them can easily pick them up. There's a lot of anger and fear and some of it is getting directed at the wrong people.

I can understand why the people around you in the hospital were scared. I don't think they handled the situation well, but I can understand why they challenged you. A&E staff get told so many lies and are so overworked that their default reaction is sometimes open suspicion.

You talk about wanting to make changes - you said there was nowhere private for you to explain why you couldn't wear a mask. Getting that changed would be an excellent thing to campaign for. No one should ever feel obliged to recount such personal details in earshot of non-medically trained strangers - you deserved more compassion than that. If you had been able to be quickly ushered into a private space without fuss, the whole ordeal might have been less traumatic.

The hospital staff may not have had access to your medical history. GP and hospital notes are notorious for not being joined up. I've experienced this myself and found it baffling, seeing as I've been specifically treated as an in-patient for a condition my GP is supposed to deal with the majority of the time, but at least it's been inconvenient in my case, rather than traumatic. Perhaps there needs to be a way of better identifying people who are exempt from the mask rules by linking some sort of flag to their NHS number. That's another change that you could press for - if you give your details and staff can locate you from them, they should be able to see that a doctor has already decided you don't need to wear a mask. There should be no need to get into that decision again and ask for details.

You mentioned you were given a visor to wear - did you get on with this at all? It sounds like by the time you were given a visor mask you were in a bad place and anything would have been terrible, but if perhaps an adapted version might work for you (the internet is full of people selling custom made masks these days) that would be ideal. I appreciate that it might still be triggering for you, and this might be a complete non-starter, but wanted to check whether there was any mileage in exploring that option further.

Although staying at home as much as possible if you don't want to/can't wear a mask is probably the right thing to do, as you rightly pointed out, with a potentially broken limb, you didn't have much of a choice but to venture into the outside world and into a hospital with people there.

Suing the NHS is rarely the right thing to do, but making a formal complaint and campaigning for change (if indeed you have the strength to do so) would not be wrong.

Again, I'm sorry that you had this experience, and that you've perhaps had to share more details of your trauma on this thread than you would have liked to in order to convey your point. None of it is fair or deserved.

Sigh,

Why did you not think ahead ? Why did you not prepare ? You are going to encounter this on public transport , shops etc ? Is this going to happen every time or are you going to equip yourself with what you need ?

I was in severe pain because I'd just broken several bones in my hand. I was wearing a sunflower lanyard. I knew I was exempt and explained why, even declaring my PTSD, which legally I have no requirement to do as I should not be challenged in the first place.

I am UNABLE to wear a mask, and GOVERNMENT GUIDANCE has my back. Funnily enough, I've encountered zero problems in any shop or supermarket so far, I didn't expect it to happen in a healthcare environment, and I will never be able to set foot in that building again.

@TheStuffedPenguin

That's such a horrible thing to say. Do you think you'll look back on this thread in a few hours and be pleased that you posted that?

@RufustheRowlingReindeer

4. refering to you as female when you aren't (because people can't even use the very simple 'read all OPs posts button

I agree with most of your post and I absolutely agree that all of the ops posts should be read before commenting

But the above is a paid for feature

Very sorry to hear what you've been put through, OP. I second what Justpassingthrough and Epidermolysis have said.

Rufus, your posts are usually on the money but I think you're wrong about this. Maybe it's not the same for all users but I don't pay to use MN and I have the 'OP's posts: show all' button at the bottom of all OP's posts. It's a facility that should be better known and more widely used. Hitherto I was relying on the 'highlight OP's posts' option, which is v useful but more time-consuming.

(Btw, I've been wearing a mask for weeks, but not incapable of recognising that not everyone can.)

OP. Totally get you on establishing precedent since you've found PALS to be useless in the past.

Bits of this thread are unfortunately degenerating into that classic MN putdown of "I'd call you a cunt, but you lack the warmth and depth."

My psychiatrist wrote me one but for all we know the OP isn't seeing one.

Last saw mine last year, my PTSD/CPTSD/GAD are reasonably stable on my meds so long as something (like this) doesn't upset the apple cart. They'll see me if I request it but happy to leave that in my hands.

@TheStuffedPenguin do you realise that 80% of people with PTSD due to sexual trauma have a propensity to think about self-harm and that it takes very, very, little to push it over the edge into doing. You have no fucking idea the thoughts I've had this past 24 hours and you are being deliberately inflammatory.