Hello
I saw I was mentioned earlier. Thank you to those who remember my message. It means more than you probably realise.
The new designs of toilet cubicles is getting very dangerous and has and will lead to more deaths, serious injuries and assaults.
Unisex toilets are enclosed by design (usually, and now stipulated by the last government). As soon as toilets become fully enclosed they are dangerous for everyone. But especially girls, women and anyone medically vulnerable. We do not need more of them.
The enclosed unisex cubicles have been called ‘rape cubicles’ as they provide perfect conditions. Firstly for someone to hide then let themselves in to the next cubicle with a woman or child in it without warning, as you can’t see the perpetrator approaching from inside the cubicle. Secondly because of the cubicles being fully enclosed there has to be a mechanism to open the cubicle door from the outside outwards (because a body on the floor will stop the door being opened inwardly and lots of people collapse in toilets as it’s where people go when they feel ill - pre stroke/heart attack/seizure from illness or spiking). So you may think you are ‘safe’ and locked in but you are not. This mechanism is specified in Document T for all public toilets including office toilets etc in new builds.
Thirdly now the attacker is in the cubicle it means there are no witnesses and the cubicles are more soundproof.
Lastly the attacker can let themselves out and no one would be on alert as the area is unisex.
This is why there are lots of rapes and sexual assaults happening in this style of toilet cubicle. This includes disabled toilets in shopping centres and stations, and unisex toilets in schools. Many rapes are happening in nightclubs as young girls are followed in after they have been spiked.
If you are going to collapse, you need to make sure you are visible. Problem is, people feel ill and go to the toilet and often are too confused to realise they are about to collapse.
If you are going to do cpr or use a defibrillator you need to do it quickly. Also a diabetic hypo or an epileptic seizure becomes more serious the longer it lasts (you should call an ambulance during a first seizure or after 5 minutes in the case of a person with epilepsy). My friends and I saved a life because we saw someone on the floor of a cubicle through the door gap. Emilia Clarke (actress) collapsed in a gym toilet from a brain aneurysm but luckily the woman in the cubicle next to her realised, got in and saved her life. Michael Moseley saved a woman’s life (who went on to have children) because she collapsed in the BBC cooridors and he saw and immediately did cpr. But if that woman had got to a unisex toilet no one may have known. Safety and safeguarding is about visibility.
There is a defibrillator in every school because of the risk of children and others collapsing. But from last year, the Department of Education have ignored health and safety with the design of secondary school toilets because the standard design is now to enclose cubicles in new builds and refurbishments. There will be children in schools that are particularly more at risk such as those with diagnosed or undiagnosed epilepsy (on average 9-12 per school), children with undiagnosed heart conditions, children with diabetes, children who are at risk due to spiked vapes etc. There is also at least 1 rape per school day in schools according to Parliament (2015/6). There are lots of accounts of sexual assaults in school toilets. Enclosing them makes the problem much much worse but the government have just done that. Manufacturers of school toilets are now designing toilets with less than 0.5cm gap at the bottom of the door because of the governments advice. I have written to the Department of Education and they say the governors of each school are ultimately responsible for the safety of their pupils. So although the school are following the governments advice, they must simultaneously ignore it?!? There will never be a situation where it can be guaranteed these enclosed toilets are safer than ones that are not enclosed for the school population.
The health aspect is that enclosed toilets have to have mechanical ventilation otherwise air borne pathogens are concentrated - so you are more likely to get ill. Also vomit/faeces/urine can’t be easily washed away and mopped from the floor if the door and partitions go down to the floor and get encrusted.
Finally, in a building evacuation, the rescuers need to do a quick sweep of each room. This is easy when you can see a row of feet or if someone has collapsed. It adds minutes on if you are having to open each door to check.
I avoided discussing how convenient the new enclosed toilets were for criminal activities because I did not want to raise awareness incase it got seen by the wrong people. But the wrong people are already taking advantage with the new opportunity. And obviously the ‘right’ people seem to be oblivious to the dangers until it happens to someone they love. So it is for the right people I am trying to spread awareness and get these dangerous designs stopped.