Never thought I'd post on here but males on female hospital wards. Wtf

[ryzen]

I thought we were making progress by getting rid of mixed wards. I'm really upset by this. Can I do anything?!

I am a victim of endless sexual abuse and harassment.

I have suffered very much for being female and being physically weaker than most males. I do not want to ever have to end up on a ward with one. I actually hide away now due to the attacks I have suffered in public. I never get a taxi alone. I plan my days around being home before dark.

In all honesty I do avoid men but I feel I should be able to if I want to especially with something as intimate as my healthcare. I've read a report in the times today that says if a female does not want to be next to a trans person then they should be treated as a racist would. I find it disgusting to even compare these scenarios.

Bloody autocorrect!

What's wrong is that you do not recognise that other women do feel uncomfortable among men, and do have the right to feel this way, regardless of their personal experiences. What is wrong is you excluding them.

[quote Rosesareredd]@GoldenBlue
@GCAcademic

You are insinuating that all men pose a threat and we should be threatened by their presence. We can’t incriminate all men.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have individual wards for different sexes either, just that it doesn’t make me uncomfortable to share the same ward with the opposite sex.[/quote]
Where did we say "all men"?

You need to up your game if you think NAMALT is going to work on here.

You are either very young or very privileged if you don't think that men can be a threat to women, and believe that as a class men are safe to be next to in a bed when you are incapacitated and vulnerable.

@MurielSpriggs
Obviously not. Everyone is treated the same. No group is singled out.
(This was about DBS checks in schools, for anyone too bored to check back upthread.)
Perhaps I wasn't entirely clear. The children do not pose a threat, or only a very slight one, so they are not DBS checked (and besides, it's pretty hard to pretend to be 8 when you're actually 30). The adults, in general, pose a significantly higher threat, so they are checked. All of them. Even the granny of the kid in Y4.

The same with hospital wards. Women pose a tiny risk to other adult women. Men pose a much, much higher risk to women. This is why I don't want men as patients on women's wards. Even men who present as women.

@rosesareredd

I think you are trying to come across as super liberal and non judgemental but you're actually sounding very naive, which may be an age thing.

You have commented that it is wrong to judge men because all your experiences have been positive. Do you realise what a small minded statement that is?

Whether you have personally been assaulted or threatened by a man, the fact remains that the vast majority of women have or will face some form of threat, harassment or violence from a Male at some point in their life. In a hospital, at their most vulnerable, they should be safe.

Your "positive experiences" do not outweigh that.

@Pellewsmate I had a very similar experience. Post op in an ent mixed ward. Had a private room but the nurses wouldnt let me keep the door closed. The nurses couldn't see me either, my room opened in to a corridor.

Post-op on morphine I was drifting in and out of consciousness and a man kept coming to my doorway to stare at me. I remember not being able to keep my eyes open as he stared at me.

So pretty soon and certainly before I was ready I got up (in a gown and attached to a drip) to close the door.

I. Got. Told. Off. For. Shutting. The. Door.

Nurses propped open the door and the fucker came back to stare at me.

I have/had no idea of his intentions or reasons. All I know is that I was very vulnerable in this situation and it wasn't right.

In the end I ripped out my candula myself and discharged myself because I couldn't rest safely.

@Bexxe

As an ex hospital worker i think i can weigh in here.

To be clear - Hospitals make the concious effort to ensure wards arent mixed sex breached. Infact, they have to report to NHSI/E everytime a mixed sex breach occurs because its classed as an incident.

With the pressures in the hospitals at the moment, clinical need has to prevail over mixed wards. If there is a patient coming in through A&E that needs respiratory care, and the only bed left is on a male ward - they clinically have to put the patient on that ward no matter the sex. The alternative is to have a patient who needs specialist care in a non-specialist ward which can end in fatality.
Hospitals do work hard to make sure people are placed in same sex wards, but the clinical need of the patient must come first to ensure they are given the best care

Vulvamort (via Twitter)

"About NHS single sex wards.
Let me explain something.

The 2010 policy which is called "Eliminating Mixed Sex Accommodation" (MSA) is based upon Gender, NOT sex.
It's CALLED sex.
That's the PR.
But it is based on gender.

And it involves financial fines for breaches.

It means that if you have a ward of 5 cervix-havers and a 6th cervix-haver joins them, the hospital will be fined for a breach if the 6th identifies as 'a man'.
That would be a mixed gender breach.

But if you place a penis-haver in amongst them, that's no breach, if he identifies as 'a woman'.
This would be a single gender ward.

The 5 women's 'genders' are assumed for them.

And the policy reports on 'gender'."

twitter.com/HairyLeggdHarpy/status/1422501854970253337

@MarleneDietrichsSmile

Do you know how hospitals work?

I was taken into hospital last year and placed on an all male ward. Adding me made the ward mixed

That was that

7 blokes and me in 1 room, and me shuffling to the loo in my gown that is open at the back, with my bare bottom on show

THAT is the much revered and much loved NHS (yes, staff are great, the system isn’t)

Saying you don’t want to be next to a trans person would be a pointless wish anyway, as you may be sharing a room with 7 men anyway

Such fun

They still use those awful bare-arse gowns? There’s absolutely no need for those to still be in use. It feels like deliberate humiliation of patients.

Nottinghamshire Healthcare, NHS Fountation Trust
'Leadership in Trans Equality'
Foreward by Ruth Hunt (former CEO Stonewall UK)
(extract)
A ward manager who attended a training session in June 2014 kindly shared with us an email that she sent to her team, following discussion at the team meeting earlier that day. She writes:

"I attended the Trans awareness training this week and just want to reiterate the main learning points:
• If handing over a patient who may not have been born female – THIS SHOULD NOT BE DISCLOSED. Under the Data Protection Act we are not to disclose gender history UNLESS it has a direct impact on their care (fully document this). Ask yourself, Do I NEED to disclose
this? Obviously with patient permission this is OK, but it is advisable to get the permission in writing.
• Gender is self-identifiable – a gender transition is complete when the individual feels it is complete. Some people live as a different gender taking hormone tablets, some without, some
have surgery, some don’t.
• You cannot say “they are not female because they have not completed transition… they stopped their hormone tablets… they have not had surgery”. An individual only has to propose to change gender to be deemed as requiring to be respected as that gender
if they wish to. This means for example, if they are requesting to be nursed on a female ward, you should be very careful if deciding to refuse and should ensure you have good evidence to believe their request is related to their current mental state. If in doubt, ask! Just bear in mind you would be in more trouble for denying someone’s rights!
• Another good example (food for thought) – if a female (who was once male and has a past history of sexual assaults on women) needed admission to a female ward then she should be treated as any other patient and a thorough risk assessment be carried out."

www.nottinghamshirehealthcare.nhs.uk/download.cfm?doc=docm93jijm4n3779.pdf&ver=5184

H/t Wild Woman Writing Club twitter.com/wwwritingclub/status/1422452441333837834

So, for all the NAMALT crew, maybe if its stated in terms of how it might also make men uncomfortable to have women on the same ward you might start to get it..?

@MarleneDietrichsSmile

Do you know how hospitals work?

I was taken into hospital last year and placed on an all male ward. Adding me made the ward mixed

That was that

7 blokes and me in 1 room, and me shuffling to the loo in my gown that is open at the back, with my bare bottom on show

THAT is the much revered and much loved NHS (yes, staff are great, the system isn’t)

Saying you don’t want to be next to a trans person would be a pointless wish anyway, as you may be sharing a room with 7 men anyway

Such fun

I was also admitted to a men’s ward in an emergency. Yes initially I was grateful a bed was found and too ill to do anything but the experience was terrifying and I discharged myself post surgery as soon as I could be moved in a wheelchair. I have ongoing health issues and don’t know how much my recovery was impacted by leaving before the hospital was willing to discharge me but I was too scared of the men trying to get to me at night to stay.

There’s many women with similar stories. I don’t want to ever have to stay in a hospital with a male in the same ward ever again however they identify and the thought that one might be placed on a female ward because they felt more comfortable would fill me with rage

They still use those awful bare-arse gowns? There’s absolutely no need for those to still be in use. It feels like deliberate humiliation of patients

Those surgical gowns are fucking disgusting when used for ambulant patients with no hope of privacy.

The best thing to do is insist on having two, and wear one as a long cardigan to cover up your arse. I do this for scans, surgery, the lot, now.

For the benefit of @rosesareredd absolutely NAMALT but it didnt need to be every man in that ward to be like that for it to be terrifying, it just needed to be one or two - AND THEY WEREN’T TRYING TO GET IN BED WITH THE OTHER MEN

Wow R0wantrees. I feel so scarily helpless. One of the places our rights as women should be protected regardless of what is happening in society, and yet it is enshrined there that we do not count. There is no way this is general public belief.

Spindle - Thanks for that tip. I used to have regular surgery and will use that if I need to have more!

How did we get to such a place that the NHS would blatantly argue for the rights of rapists and paedophiles to be placed on hospital wards with women? At one time anyone with that level of predatory disordered thinking would be viewed with great suspicion and be got rid of.
Now the NHS welcomes those with these dangerous views and gives them power and influence. And politicians are so scared of those with these disgraceful, dangerous views that they daren't speak out.

Who'd have thought that NHS staff would be holding open the door to a women's hospital ward to the likes of Karen White and saying "welcome"

GiantToadstool The majority of the public are unaware. They will not tolerate being lied to by NHS and successive governments since 2010. We are not however helpless, do raise concerns with your MP and local hospital trust.

Rosesareredd

I don't need you to reply to me, but I would like you to read this newspaper article.

A judge has criticised a Cork hospital after hearing that a teenage girl undergoing treatment for life-threatening injuries was sexually assaulted by a 63-year-old male patient with whom she was sharing a ward.

Cork Circuit Criminal Court was told that the assault on the17-year-old girl at Cork University Hospital (CUH) by Andrew O'Donovan from Butlersgift, Drimoleague, was only interrupted because his heart monitor began to accelerate.

A nurse spotted the change in the monitor reading and went to the ward to investigate.

O'Donovan pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting the teenager on 14 May 2018.

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin heard that the girl had sustained life-threatening injuries and was being treated in CUH.

She was admitted to a ward, which also contained three adult men.

O'Donovanapproached the girl in the early hours of 14 May2018 and sexually assaulted her while she lay in bed.

JudgeÓ Donnabhain questioned the management of the ward system at CUH.

Specifically he queried a system that allowed a young girl to be placed in close proximity to a man with serious mental health issues spanning several decades.

He said that it was "a very, very troubling case".

The judge said: "You have to question the management of the ward system at CUH that allowed a young girl to be placed in close proximity to a man who was known to have a history of schizophrenic tendencies and a long psychiatric history."

He said the hospital management and supervision involved had to be queried and thatmanagement needed to "buck up".

Continues: www.rte.ie/news/2020/0211/1114676-girl-sexually-assaulted/

How did we get to such a place that the NHS would blatantly argue for the rights of rapists and paedophiles to be placed on hospital wards with women? At one time anyone with that level of predatory disordered thinking would be viewed with great suspicion and be got rid of.
Now the NHS welcomes those with these dangerous views and gives them power and influence. And politicians are so scared of those with these disgraceful, dangerous views that they daren't speak out.

The thread below provides background.

AngryAttackKittens wrote Thu 03-Jan-19,
"I'm going to point every "but the nice, harmless old school transsexuals whose movement has been unfairly appropriated by the nasty transgender people" person to this thread from now on.

All the same elements we're seeing now were there in that old BBC roundtable from the 70s with the 4 transwomen, the politician, and the doctor. None of this is new."
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3463920-Lets-go-back-to-2007

@Pellewsmate

This is just not about the possibility of assault. Once I was placed in a room on my own with a window into a men's ward. The man in the bed nearest the window was leering at me every time I looked up. I was in hospital because I was ill, I could barely walk and was hooked up to a IV, I felt like hell and just wanted to sleep. I spent my entire time on edge and couldn't rest, the man didn't hurt me physically but I felt threatened and uncomfortable, it was obvious that the man was enjoying making me feel that way. I very much doubt that any of this aided my recovery.

This is the kind of thing a lot of men don’t understand. They are blind to leering and quietly threatening behaviour by other men. They have no idea how it feels.

Today, I emailed Liz Truss to draw her attention to a Times article about this subject which had over 900 comments (all good). Because I live in Wales and the Welsh Government has totally lost the plot, it was pretty pointless contacting my own MP. I have no idea whether or not I will get a reply, but at least, I tried.

We as women are expected to police and manage our immediate environment - allowing a man who harms us into our space we are usually held as responsible for what those men then do to us…
Ie. Rape victims
Why did you chat to him?
Why did you accept the drink ?
Etc etc

When a predatory man gains access to women spaces they regard that as consent and our society and courts fucking agree with him.

Now our government is forcing us to be in spaces with men when we don’t want them there. How am I supposed to keep myself safe ?

Exactly JKR.

This will take us back to women being unable to enter the workplace , the public sphere, and medical.care.

And this is supoosed to be progressive.

Let’s have mixed prisons next. If I commit a crime I’m perfectly happy to bunk in with a male prisoner. We’re all human beings!

Actually I think I would die of fright if I had to share with any unknown man, even if he were in for tax fraud.

Already happening dotty

Males r In womens prisons