Stroke patient, 75, died as she lay helpless in hospital bed *content warning - sexual assault MNHQ*

[FightingtheFoo]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9563237/Stroke-patient-75-died-sexually-assaulted-lay-helpless-hospital-bed.html

"A stroke patient 'died after being sexually assaulted' as she lay ill in a hospital bed, an inquest heard.
Valerie Kneale had been admitted to Blackpool Victoria Hospital following a stroke and had later broken her leg when falling from a chair.
The 75-year-old's condition deteriorated and she died four days later.

A male hospital worker was arrested on suspicion of murder, rape and sexual assault and has since been bailed pending further inquiries.
Opening the inquest, coroner for Blackpool and Fylde Alan Wilson said: 'Concerns had been raised about a potential injury around the genital area.
'This prompted a police investigation by Lancashire Constabulary.'

The autopsy revealed that although Mrs Kneale did have a significant stroke, the pathologist did not think it was the cause of death.
Mr Wilson said: 'She said that was due to an internal and external haemorrhage which was in turn due to a vaginal laceration or tear.'

The pathologists' report believed it was caused by a sexual assault after she was admitted to hospital.
Mrs Kneale died on November 16, 2018."

I am just full of rage. She was at her most vulnerable and was failed, yet again, by the system. We should be marching.

@DaisiesandButtercups

Having read the article shared by persistentwoman

I stand by the proposal I made on a previous thread that in future only women should be permitted to specialise in gynaecology and obstetrics.

I dissent. The late Dirk Wildemeersch was a fantastic ob/gyn who developed new IUSes to reduce the agonising pain that many women suffer because of endometriosis. He's also the only man I've ever trusted enough to insert a speculum into me, and the only IUCD fitter ever to offer me cervical anaesthesia. Had he been barred from his specialism because of his sex, women would not have benefited from his research work. Mandatory chaperoning by a woman when male practitioners are treating female patients would be a reasonable safeguard.

The only thing that makes them a ‘man’ is their penis. This specimen is no man. He’s a raping, cowardly stain on humanity.

Again, I dissent. Rapists often act like the rest of us, they hide in plain sight, and around 6% of men will admit to acts that meet legal definitions of rape and sexual assault as long as the researchers describe the act instead of using the label "rape". The problem with the "rapists are monsters" narrative is that it invites men to consider rapists as "other" and "not like me", when in fact we need men to look critically at themselves and their friends and realise that, as the Chiliean protest song goes, sometimes "the rapist is you".

it can't be that difficult to ensure that female personal care is only carried out by women

That has been the policy in every trust I have worked at (which is lots). There is plenty of other stuff for male HCAs and nurses to do - obs, IVs and drug rounds, phlebotomy/cannulas, helping with eating and drinking, helping people walk, and of course personal care for men (who presumably also prefer same-sex carers).

Nurses/HCAs should also never be alone behind a curtain with any patient, of any gender (mostly to avoid complaints about rudeness etc, rather than allegations of sexual assault). They go in pairs. Obviously if somebody is in a side room and you are popping in to reset an IV pump or hand out meds, you are out of view. But the door should be open.

Perhaps I have worked at some particularly litigation-sensitive trusts, but I honestly thought that was standard. And yes, obviously doctors are chaperoned for intimate examinations. That is for their own protection.

We don’t know what profession this healthcare worker was - people are assuming a nurse, but he could have been a doctor, or a cleaner. Either way, there seems to be something totally fucked up going on on that stroke ward.

In one of the news stories about this it said he is a 'medic.'

I can't believe he is on bail. It is absolutely sick and it sounds like he used a lot of violence to cause such injuries. Just awful.

In one of the news stories about this it said he is a 'medic.'

Unfortunately I have seen local news use “medic” to refer to all kinds of random professions - I would only use it to mean a doctor, but plenty of people seem to use it to mean anybody in a hospital.

If it turns out it was a doctor, I really don’t know how you would prevent eg somebody going in to the room to put a cannula in, then assaulting the patient - obviously you need to have a chaperone for intimate examinations, but junior doctors work alone for most of their shifts. You couldn’t be shadowed for the entire shift without doubling your workforce.

You have to assume that most doctors wouldn’t do that (out of concern for their career, if nothing else). But as Shipman showed, if somebody is determined to do evil, they will manage it.

Nurses/HCAs should also never be alone behind a curtain with any patient, of any gender (mostly to avoid complaints about rudeness etc, rather than allegations of sexual assault). They go in pairs.

Perhaps I have worked at some particularly litigation-sensitive trusts, but I honestly thought that was standard.

I'd say you must work at very well staffed trusts. Particularly on night shifts when there may be just one trained nurse and a couple of HCA's for a whole ward.

The new Southmeade Hospital building in Bristol is 80% single rooms, the wards (or gates as they call them ) are huge long corridors, I don't know how things are now but when they opened falls went off the scale due to all these unsupervised patients.

Perhaps I have worked at some particularly litigation-sensitive trusts, but I honestly thought that was standard.

It's not been standard anywhere I've worked or been a patient. I can't imagine staffing it! I do think it should be standard but I don't know anywhere that it it.

That poor poor woman. The only answer, I think, is to live entirely separate from men.

This is absolutely horrific and heartbreaking.