Mixed sex wards?

[Ward3567]

Hi!

just wondered what other people would have felt about this because honestly I’m not sure if my reaction is ridiculous or not!

I was recently unwell and in hospital and on a ward for several days. I have really limited experience with hospitals but I guess I had assumed everyone on the ward would be female but it was mixed. I was the youngest (early 20s) and everyone was so, so nice so it was fine, but I sort of felt a bit nervous about being on a ward with men- I know that’s completely daft because it’s a hospital and nothing happened and they were all nice but I was really nervous about it. There was around 6 of us (2 females and 4 males) and everyone was ranging in age from 40-70 so I was the youngest and honestly they couldn’t have been nicer to me so I feel so awful for feeling nervous and uneasy, but I just sort of spent the entire time on my nerves. I guess it was probably worsened by being unwell and feeling a bit vulnerable which probably made it all seem worse than it actually was, but I just felt so uneasy about it. During the night there were no staff within eyeshot or earshot because our ward was at the other end of the corridor and I just remember being up at 4am and feeling totally alone and frightened to be around 4 males. Add into the equation the fact our ward toilet didn’t have a working lock on it which probably made it the whole thing feel more stressful than it was!

so yeah, just wondered would this have made anyone else nervous or was I being dramatic/feeling a bit vulnerable because I was unwell?

I wpuldd t like ot wotheer. Being in a nightie or hospital gown feels a bit inappropriate in a mixed ward

Of course you were not being silly

when you are unwell you are vulnerable and will often feel vulnerable. It’s not just a matter of being vulnerable but dignity too

sadly you are not necessarily safe in hospital because others are unwell too
never underestimate the desire for some particularly men to cause harm

An ignorant and condescending thing to say.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-65671018

As a nurse I was asked to admit a lade overnight into a male bay, it was the only available monitored bed available, I said yes, she was okay with it, a side room was due to come up the next day. Another member of staff objected, said she would report me, site and the bed manager to the nmc, filled out an incident report although the incident didn't happen. The patient ended up staying in a unmonitored bed on the inappropriate ward, you can't win sometimes. In hindsight perhaps the senior staff should have over ridden the staff member but were shite scared of being disciplined.

Some countries are absolutely barbaric, and do not value the lives or the safety of women at all. I am very sorry, Ward3567, that you live in such a place, but please know that your feelings of discomfort and hesitation are not unusual.

As other posters have indicated, most men are absolutely fine and there is absolutely no good reason why we live in a world where the vast majority of sexual crimes are committed by men, and the vast majority of victims are women, but that is the reality and in many, many polities, women have fought for and won the right to single sex spaces and services as a kind of "band aid" to keep us a little bit safer until attitudes shift and women are treated as fully human.

It’s basic safeguarding to have separate sex wards unless there’s a high staff prescence, it’s a particular problem in mental healthcare ,nobody should be assaulted whilst receiving nhs care https://rapecrisis.org.uk/news/alarming-scale-of-sexual-violence-and-abuse-on-mental-health-wards/#:~:text=Last%20Spring%2C%20the%20Guardian%20and,2022%20across%20all%20NHS%20settings.

Ps. Most hospitals have mixed wards but single sex bays…as ever it depends on whose on the ward ,wandering dementia patients who often are in a lot of distress in hospital have always been an issue for staff to deal with but obviously anyone unwell can act out of character due to their illness. So we need to support people’s privacy and dignity and that’s not always easy when someone’s throwing off their covers or walking around in a hospital gown.

DM was in hospital recently on a ward with single sex bays. There was a man who kept wandering into the women's bays. DM woke at 4am to see him at the end of the bed. He was poorly but mobile and he also had what seemed to be early dementia by the way the staff were talking to him. However, DM was extremely vulnerable unable to even get into a sitting position on her own. She shouldn't have to have that fear in the middle of the night. Single sex wards should be the norm.

The reason why we have single sex wards is becuse men commit 97% of sexual assaults in the UK

It is basic safeguarding.

Current NHS policy is being reviewed thanks to Baroness Nicholson. There was an annexe introduced not so long ago that pushed mixed sex wards, this is being repealed.

Who said the House of Lords is useless!

OP never let yourself get gaslighted into believing your boundaries are wrong.

I'm not that long out of the mental hospital but there was no question of rooming with the opposite sex there. Mostly single rooms, and if there were doubles they were same sex.

Hospitals are of very ,very different designs, it’s not that you may be roomed with the opposite sex in psychiatric facilities but you are very likely to be on the same unit as the opposite sex. With the particular risks and vulnerabilities of patients on psychiatric units, single sex units should be the norm.

Oh I was on the same unit alright. That was grand though, it was well policed. I think it would have felt even more 'prisony' if it was just women tbh. Just my own personal opinion of course.

Carriemac · Yesterday 20:42

People get raped in NHS wards every year . Mixed sexual wards are inappropriate.

Last Spring, the Guardian and the BMJ published the results of their investigationn_ which showed that NHS trusts had recorded more than 35,000 cases of rape, sexual assault, harassment, stalking, and abusive remarks between 2017 and 2022 across all NHS setting

Holy fuck! I knew that it happened, but hadn't realised that it was so prevalent. I've done the NHS consultation and hit has several sections about mixed sex wards and carers and how it would like to put a stop to it.

https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49318-john-humphrys-has-gender-ideology-gripped-the-nhs

( https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5067907-yougov-wants-to-know-if-you-think-gender-ideology-has-gripped-the-nhs?reply=135009792 )

When one in four women have been sexually assaulted or raped and one in six young girls have been sexually abused.... it just isn't an accurate statement to say that "most" men are caring individuals.

And we all know rape is under reported, as is childhood sexual abuse.

It isn't just a few people committing all of these acts throughout the UK.
These statistics imply that one in four men have either raped or sexually assaulted someone.

Sorry you had to go through that. I can kind of understand mixed bays for physical medical reasons, but surely a psychiatric ward should never be mixed sex. That's just dangerous, and you had to experience it. Awful.

I’m glad you had a positive experience, I think as you say it’s how the ward is staffed and managed ( men are also likely to experience violence from other men so staffing is crucial). The old style huge psychiatric hospitals left over from the Victorian asylum system were always single sexed as were the old style nightingale wards within the (physical system) hospitals… we created huge problems with bed availability when they started to close down all the cottage hospitals and reduce bed numbers overall because of the push to improve community and intermediate care services…good idea in practice but they never funded that change properly and our bed numbers are dire compared to the eu ….Bed numbers UK 2.43 per 1,000 population versus 5.73 in France and 7.82 in Germany.

I was admitted on to a mixed bay ( late night maybe about 3am after spending 8 hours in A and E) It was fine but I did feel uncomfortable. The consultant sent me off to a sideroom the next day as I was interesting medically speaking.

I'm not UK and the place I was in was very modern. It was not far off a hotel room tbh! I got sepsis and had to be moved to the main hospital, it was like going back 100 years. The huge ward and lots of men (who were grand, but still). There were plenty of staff, and always some male staff so I suppose they could've grabbed an unwelcome advance but I'd still prefer single sex given the option. But based on my experience, the men were actually no bother. The funniest thing was, I was lying in the bed and I heard a convo about bowel movements (lovely!) and the more I heard, the more I thought 'i know those voices '. It turned out it was my uncle (unable to poo apparently) and aunt right across from me. I've never dived under a blanket so fast 😂😂😂😂

@DanielGault gawd that’s awkward!!! Yes it can be eye opening what you see and hear as a patient,curtains are very thin! hope u are on the mend now x

I've both been a patient and a staff nurse on the wards and I feel that the traditional, long nightingale style wards should always be single sex (unless they can easily be sub divided) but the modern, 6 bed bay wards are okay as mixed sex wards as long as each bay (with bathroom) are single sex.

It's just common decency for people of both sexes who are ill and feeling vulnerable.

I'm grand thank you. Although still living with the memory of the uncles bowel movements ( or lack thereof!)

@DanielGault that is a bit shocking. I always want my curtains shut, but I wouldn't want men shuffling past with their arses out. Not their fault but with gowns and orthopaedic surgery you're gonna get mooned, end of! Lol.
The same day emergency care bit was mixed, but people are only ever there for hours, not overnight. I guess I'd rather have a bed near a man than be sitting on a horrible chair in ER for another extra 12 hours. Definitely not ideal though.

The men were going around in all manner off undressed-ness. Some of it due to age, some of it less so. I kept the curtain closed when I could, but it wasn't always possible because I'm not fully mobile. So really quite vulnerable when I think about it. But as I said above, it was definitely the women that were the troublemakers when I was there!

I had an emergency admission to a cardiac ward, there was one other woman on the ward and probably 12 to 14 men, I can't be sure of numbers as I was in a bay at the front of the ward and didn't check how many beds in other bays. We were discharged on the same day and the female bay was empty. All the talk about only having single sex wards does worry me, on that ward I was cared for by specialist cardiac nurses, they struggle with numbers and one of the nurses was semi retired but covered shifts when they were desperately short. If the ward was single sex I'm pretty sure it would be a male ward simply due to numbers. Where would I be? I can't see them opening a specialist cardiac ward for women when they apparently don't always have female patients and always just a few. Would I be on a general medical ward? Would the staff on that ward be as knowledgeable as the specialist cardiac nurses?

Yes I was in a mixed sex bay last year on the MAU. Next to a bloke who was an absolute gobshite. Sat around with his top off talking at me. I drew my curtains around once he'd gone to the loo.
Fortunately I was moved after a few hours.
To those posters who say they wouldn't mind - good for you but you don't speak for everyone. I strongly suspect most of you are fortunate that you haven't had bad experiences with men.