Mental health facilities have a culture of sexual assault, surprising no one who knows anything about it.

[Emerencealwayshopeful]

www.independent.co.uk/voices/mental-health-nhs-psychiatric-wards-sexual-abuse-rape-assault-misogyny-a8533931.html

In Victoria, Australia, where I live there is not a single mental health in patient facility that is sex segregated.

I know of a young woman with an intellectual disabilty who was refused access to care because no hospital was willing or able to protect her from almost certain assault.

Like 99% of women with an intellectual disability she is a rape survivor.

But who cares, right?

That is truly shocking Emerence. Do you know why they don't have sex segregation? Whether is was always so or has come about recently due to the trans train. So many women being sacrificed on the alter of woke.

It has been talked about on here before
I don’t rember when but perhaps rowan will know
But it is shocking that they pretend they cat protect women
From sexualassualt

This is what needs to be sorted

I've seen comments on other forums from people in Australia, the US and Canada saying stuff like 'I'm so glad I don't live in the UK' when something's come up about our current shit show. They have no idea what is going on in their countries and we do: that's the only difference.

Sex segreagation in public hospitals just sort of disappeared quietly in the early 90s. Each state realised it was cheaper this way and there wasn’t public backlash. So most private hospitals followed suit.

In the private hospitals usually it’s not a big deal. There are mostly private rooms and when people are in shared rooms they mostly try to sex segregate.

But both public and private mental health specific hospital wards? Understaffed and even though they CAN (officially) provide a 1-1 nurse to act as protectors - it’s cheaper to send the CAT team out daily for a week.

One positive thing in Australia.

The high court states that cross sex hormones can only be provided to someone judged as gillick competent.

This solidifies gender dysphoria as a health condition because gillick competency isn’t relevant otherwise.

Beyond that - self ID basically already exists and only bigots could possibly believe that there are risks to trans ideology.

I had a friend tell me that trans inclusive language such as cervix havers disadvantaged nobody. This in a country where 44% of adults are considered functionally illiterate and not all schools teach basic biology and physiology.

FFS - the articles recently out about botched labiaplasties strongly suggests that most medical professionals don’t know about female body parts. But sure, no women will miss the message about being checked for cervical cancer just because we’ve removed the word woman from the advertising.

Yes I’m bitter. I’m haemorrhaging friends at a time I need more support then ever because I can’t keep my mouth shut.

I’m kind of shocked at the stats you’ve quoted in your original post.

You’ve said that 99% of women with an intellectual disability have survived rape.

You’ve also described sexual assault in hospital as “almost certain”.

Can you provide evidence to back up these claims?

It’s reported that 65 women a week are sexually assaulted in UK mixed sex mental health wards in the UK. 2/3 being patients.

Due to complex and severe mental illness, I have been detained on many occasions over the last 5 years. The first time I was sectioned to a hospital quite a way from my local area, a mixed sex Ward. I was followed around the ward and garden for 3 days by a male patient who was masturbating under his trousers. When I mentioned it to a (female) member of staff she said ‘we’ll have a word with him but you should be aware that he’s very vulnerable’. If I’d had a little more insight into just how unwell I was, I’d have probably said ‘I’m vulnerable too’.

My local psychiatric hospital has sex segregated treatment wards but the assessment ward (which is the first place all patients are placed before being separated and I’ve been there anything from 2 days to 9 weeks) is also mixed. On one occasion, out of the 10 patients, I was the only female. The bedroom corridors are generally only monitored hourly. I had a knock at my door, assuming it was a staff member I opened it and was forced back into my room by an aggressive male patient. He was only asked to get out because it just so happened that it was during hourly checks.

These hospitals were built and the wards were developed long before changes to the GRA were discussed. I really can’t understand the mentality of letting natal males anywhere near incredibly vulnerable female patients.

It’s also interesting to look at how psychological presentation differs between men and women at crisis intervention level. In my experience, male patients are often more physically aggressive and violent than their female counterparts. I wonder if this is due to the differing socialisation between the sexes. This is purely anecdotal, however.

It doesn’t surprise me that in the case of the OP, erosion of sex segregated wards is a cost cutting exercise.

I know women who have been raped in mental hospitals while drugged, and no one believes them because they are mental patients. Horrible.

theseprecious

I can’t believe the nurse said that to you. Obviously I can, but that’s awful.

More for these precious.

I don’t know if others spotted this sad story from a couple of days ago
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6636853/Autistic-woman-raped-care-home-diagnosed-HIV-five-feared-infected.html

The abuse was only discovered when she became ill.

Saw it.

Horrible.

The perpetrator is unlikely to be caught as when she contracted the virus is unknown.

Horrific and despicable.

Paddy not sure why you're shocked it's well known that women and girls with addiitonal needs or particualr issues are at extremely high risk of sexual abuse / assault.

surely it's obvious that predators will target women adn girls who
can't communicate (and so tell anyone)
won't be believed (mental health issues)
and sadly
are not valued by society (definitely includes both of these groups)

no I don't have reports at my fingertips but common sense and reading about these issues for a long time means that fucking loads (whether that's 99% or 95%) of women in these situations have been targeted

That's before you even get onto women in the community who are exploited when they have these issues but are less severe (ie it's super common)

Everyone knows this
Don't they?
Why are you so shocked?

Funny isn't it

"Men in prison are high risk of being sexually preyed on"
"Common knowledge"

"Women and girls who are vulnerable due to mental health / learning difficulties are at high risk of beign sexually preyed on"
WHAT! Impossible. I demand stats.

...

I've worked on mental health wards in two states in Australia (but not Victoria). They all had single sex areas within the wards and it was taken very, very seriously. It was part of risk assessing patients on where to place them on the ward.

I dealt with one attempted sexual assault in ten years.

Any hospital that doesn't take this seriously is utterly failing patients as well as putting themselves at huge risk of lawsuits.

Just to add: The Alfred in Melbourne has a women only wing in its inpatient unit as well.

Gloriana - the Alfred still may have a women’s wing, but the director has explicitly told people I know that the risk to a woman with an intellectual disabilty is still high, and he would prefer to send out that CATT team then take her as an inpatient. There is discretionary funding for 1-1 babysitting when there is judged to be a greater than normal risk but in practice it is rarely available.

It’s also not single sex - people who identify as women are able to access that ward.

(Sorry for slow reply - it’s been a difficult few weeks).

I was also a patient at the Alfred a couple of years ago (not mental health ward) and was abused by nurses as well as having my buzzer ignored for over an hour on a number of occasions. I was paralysed from the waist down and at one point had blood pressure dropping to very low scary levels. It was a 2 patient room at the end of a corrridor, no direct vision from nurses station, and the other patient was male. He, or any other patient, visitor or staff member would have been able to attack me at Will with little chance of being caught.

Slight side note - women with disabilities Australia ran a sexual safety program last year that was created specifically for women with intellectual disabilities. The presenters were male, and they did not see why this was a problem for a number of women and families who enquired about the program.

I've mentioned it before, but when I was a teenager, in a mixed sex mental health unit due complex MH needs stemming from abuse, I was raped by another patient while I was on medication and there was no supervision whatsoever. In subsequent years, I've stayed in wards that were mixed and the main change was that each corridor of bedrooms is designated single sex, every other area was mixed sex.

Emerence - thank you for replying, I appreciate your view, sorry to hear the last weeks have been hard for you.

I don't want to downplay the risks to women, they're very real. I can promise you that in my practice I always, always advocated for the safety of women and I wasn't alone.

I've had women tell me how terrifying it is to be in a mental health ward, how frightened and vulnerable they feel and I've never forgotten it. It makes me angry that you and others have had such awful treatment.

Floralbunting, I'm sorry that happened to you. It's outrageous you weren't better protected in what should have been a place of safety.

I think mental health staff should have to spend a week as a patient in a mixed ward during their training. Many seem to find it very difficult to empathise with the stress of being kept in your pj's in a room full of strangers.