Male midwife facing 29 charges of misconduct,

[TheLoneRager]

NMC hearing started today, expected to last four days, of a senior male midwife accused of, among other things, having taken pictures of two women having caesarian sections without their permission and also filmed himself performing a sex act in a hospital toilet.
He faces 29 misconduct charges.

Will be watching this case this week.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10439033/Bullying-male-midwife-alleged-taken-pictures-two-women-having-Caesarean-sections.html

RedToothBrush

I have a friend who is a psychologist, and relation to the Me Too movement she says medicine is next (after the Catholic Church and before the family). I assume she believes that based on her work.

You can see on this thread alone women bringing up stories from decades ago of things they had buried or been too exhausted with a newborn to follow up.

I agree with you that there should be an inquiry, but failing that it may be public disclosures/downfalls and more women coming forward as happened in Hollywood.

@ArabellaScott

So how can women protect themselves other than by asking for female HCPs? Though even though that doesn’t guarantee that a female can’t be abusive.

Given that 99% of all sexual assaults are committed by males (of whatever gender), it's pretty good odds that you're going to be safe with a female HCP.

There are posters, even on this thread, who describe being assaults by female HCPs. The motive might not be sexually motivated but its still an assault.

I think we would be unwise to ignore this, because I fear that a culture of not properly asking for medical consent, places women at greater risk of sexual assault in a medical setting, because of the erosion of boundaries and the normalisation of patients not being worth of respect.

@greenmarlin

RedToothBrush

I have a friend who is a psychologist, and relation to the Me Too movement she says medicine is next (after the Catholic Church and before the family). I assume she believes that based on her work.

You can see on this thread alone women bringing up stories from decades ago of things they had buried or been too exhausted with a newborn to follow up.

I agree with you that there should be an inquiry, but failing that it may be public disclosures/downfalls and more women coming forward as happened in Hollywood.

I suspect she not wrong.

Those poor women, giving birth you are about as vulnerable as can be. To have someone who is supposed to be a caregiver, abuse women in this way is horrific.

I do also feel for the non scum bag male midwives.
I don't quite understand why any man would choose this profession, and cases like this just point to the worst motives. I would definitely think twice before having a male midwife

How about we just google midwives who've been struck off...

• Christine Speake
• Karen Foster
• Lesly Puertas
• Kirsteen Stewart
• Marie Teresa Ratcliffe
• Anne Facchini

If we're looking at struck off midwives, it's clear we've got some terrible women out there too.

I just can’t understand the appeal for any bloke in becoming a midwife. I think the fact that there’s only about 150 of them in the country shows that most other male nurses feel the same. However, we have to remember that these monsters do still represent a tiny minority. It’s hard though that in these days of equality, which I’m all for, we can’t just stop men from training as midwives. All we women can do is say ‘no’ if we don’t want to have one involved in our care.

I don't have a problem with men being midwives, but I think you should be able to request female only, and female obstetricians also.

How does it work with supervision though? Quite often a female midwife was with me on her own, I thought any internal examination by a male doctor or nurse had to be chaperoned these days, so surely male midwives would not be on their own with women either?

@Wreath21
Are you saying that abuse by women HCPs is worse or more prevalent than by male HCPs?
Where’s the evidence for that?
I’ve yet to read or hear of a female putting bodily fluids in a cup of tea given to a patient (like Dr Chapman), persuading young women to have inappropriate examinations (vaginal and breast) like Dr Manish Shah, hide in a colleague’s loft to spy on his teenage daughter in a shower, lasting their initials into transplanted organs, filming themselves carrying out intimate examinations, sexually assaulting a patient while examining them for a sore throat in front of their young child…
If you are trying to say women are more likely to be rude or cruel to female patients- where’s the backup evidence?

I’ve worked alongside two male midwives who were almost universally liked by colleagues and women alike. However they were very obviously camp and not interested in females sexually so I wonder if that had an impact on how welcome they were in a delivery room or how threatening they were perceived to be.

It’s an interesting topic. I’ve seen some great work done by male midwives and obstetricians (and actually I understand way more why obstetrics was male dominated, it’s a cool specialty with both surgery and medicine given an equal platform which is fairly unusual). Having said that pregnancy and childbirth is about women and nothing should detract from their comfort.

@greenmarlin Sorry but that makes no sense. If a woman wishes to have a female midwife she can have one. To go on to conclude that having men as midwives is a danger to women does not have a basis in logic and appears to be simple prejudice. I speak as a woman who has to operate in a largely male environment and where for many years men would argue about how women lacked the skills and natural acumen for the job- using any case where a woman failed to highlight this as a classic example. We cannot have it both ways.

@SweetPetrichor

How about we just google midwives who've been struck off...

• Christine Speake
• Karen Foster
• Lesly Puertas
• Kirsteen Stewart
• Marie Teresa Ratcliffe
• Anne Facchini

If we're looking at struck off midwives, it's clear we've got some terrible women out there too.

But this article is about a man.

The men in a women’s spaces and abusing that power.

As has been mention women are socialised to defend men, to say ‘but these women were bad too’, also the phenomenon of men undertaking ‘women’s work’ specifically childcare (professionally or otherwise) being lauded- absolutely unnecessarily and I can’t help but think it not wise when such high percentage of the small number of men in these areas are found out for their abhorrent behaviour.

You do not need to defend these men by shouting ‘but look at these women, they are bad too’ you don’t need to do this.
Please please don’t teach this behaviour to the next generation.

Let me put things another way. If a lack of consent, leading to assault is normal this undermines trust between patients and hcps across the board.

Women caught in this systematically might not a) be necessarily aware that they have been sexually abused b) feel that there is no one they can turn to for support or be taken seriously because they lack trust in the NHS across the board.

Thats why culturally, its important to ram home consent and respect for patients so that patients KNOW when the line has been crossed and KNOW their complaint won't just be ignored or dismissed and KNOW that someone cares about their well being.

Abuse within an establishment is enabled by poor cultural attitudes to the people its supposed to serve. People won't speak up, if they feel they will be punished in someway for doing so or because they think things will merely be covered up because they are just a nobody.

Abusers seek out people who are LEAST ABLE and LEAST LIKELY to challenge what is happening. So you have to consider this as part of the issue.

@SweetPetrichor
And how many of those were for deliberate actions rather than professional failings?
One for stealing a credit card, several for failures leading to death of babies (not abuse or murder), or giving the wrong medication..
Whereas a doctor putting semen in a cup of tea for a patient to drink is a whole other level.
If you want a list of male HCPs struck off for non sexual assaults..
We have doctors struck off for punching a patient in the face, domestic violence, prescribing themselves viagra, lying about qualifications…etc
If you can’t see the difference between assaulting someone and being medically negligent…

But a man becoming a midwife knows there will be women, for whatever reason, who will be uncomfortable with a male administering to them at birth. The NHS being what it is, there will be times when the woman has no choice.
I can't get my head round a man training for a job knowing this but being happy to go ahead.

I've had a lifetime of gynaecological care, my pregnancy was consultant led. Always cared for by men. Most have been fine, one wasn't. My pregnancy consultant was fab, he left the birth to the midwives, but was on hand if needed. I felt that I needed a female midwife and despite knowing him and trusting him (he operated on me when I was pregnant), he was very, very understanding of that.

@SweetPetrichor

How about we just google midwives who've been struck off...

• Christine Speake
• Karen Foster
• Lesly Puertas
• Kirsteen Stewart
• Marie Teresa Ratcliffe
• Anne Facchini

If we're looking at struck off midwives, it's clear we've got some terrible women out there too.

What's the denominator here? How many struck off midwives out of the a total of how many over what period of time?

It probabilities time.

And I completely support RedToothBrush on the disregard of consent issues and the number of women who don't support or even recognise the notion of consent and autonomy.

@MaryAndHerNet

For all the NAMALT types in here.. You need to add a few extra letters to that.

Not All Men Are Like That... But All Men Are Potentially That So Women Need To Minimise Their Risk Of Harm.

NAMALTBAMAPTSWNTMTROH

Snappy I like it.

I had a male midwife for my first son 20 years ago🙂 couldn't fault him . I have had some god awful female midwifes though.
I wouldn't want to see a blanket ban on male midwifes , we have male nurses , gynaecologists and obstetricians a ban wouldn't make sense

[quote Brainwave89]@greenmarlin Sorry but that makes no sense. If a woman wishes to have a female midwife she can have one. To go on to conclude that having men as midwives is a danger to women does not have a basis in logic and appears to be simple prejudice. I speak as a woman who has to operate in a largely male environment and where for many years men would argue about how women lacked the skills and natural acumen for the job- using any case where a woman failed to highlight this as a classic example. We cannot have it both ways.[/quote]
No, there are women on this thread who have been told they have to have a male midwife.

And as has been said repeatedly on this and other threads, women are socialised to be nice and to not say I don't want a male midwife. Some have accepted a male midwife and are still troubled by the experience.

The point is that you don't know which ones are abusers. Often it's not the ones you think, or you are made to feel you misunderstood. Abusers are very very skilful at hiding in plain sight.

And of course it's not prejudice, it's a fact - as can be seen in the news story and court case that sparked this thread. I know, I know, not all men, but too many of them, sadly, to pretend that males looking after vulnerable women is not going to have devastating consequences for some women, and that is too many. How is that not logic? He was found guilty FGS.

And yes, I know, female midwives can also be struck off. We're not talking about them.

And your anecdote about the sexist men you worked with only proves that you worked with sexist men. It's got nothing to do with this story.

@Laiste

Why is it so hard for intelligent women to see past their own ''lovely husband'' and understand the bigger picture?

It's really odd.

MRAs have invaded, not saying that poster is a MRA but plenty are. It smacks of women shut up because your making the menz look bad. Isnt that rule 3?

Was anyone suggesting a blanket ban on male midwives though?

@Blue4YOU

Was anyone suggesting a blanket ban on male midwives though?

Yes. For starters:

makingmiracles Tue 25-Jan-22 22:06:24

Rightly or wrongly, in my opinion men should not be midwives. Whilst doing my midwifery(didn’t end up completing) degree I worked with a male midwife on postnatal ward, everyone seemed to love him but I found out one night in the early hours he was quite a bully and extremely sharp tongued, I was a first yr student, he’d asked my to do bloods at 4am and given how tired I was (I also had 2young kids myself) I said I wasn’t confident in my ability to do it safely. He got extremely annoyed with me and sent me home.

Women are at their most vulnerable time in their lives whilst giving birth and afterwards and personally I do think it should be a job for women only.

That was the 8th post on a 10 page thread.

There were other posts.

Agree so hard with @RedToothBrush

I got annoyed at him and said these men aren't going through years of training just to see undressed women - that's the opposite of opportunistic

Years of training is exactly what abusers do. It's their cover. They get the professional/respect/good guy/pillar of the community facade that allows them abuse without scrutiny because people like you think they must be wonderful/dedicated/saintly. Most abusers are charm personified to those they are not abusing. If they weren't, they wouldn't get a foot in the door in the first place. Not to mention that even abusers need to make a living somehow, so why not work in a field that allows them to exercise their real interests during their day job. This naivety is part of the continued myth that abuse does not occur within the middle class and professional class. It happens, it's just covered in a veneer of respectability.

Not all male midwives are sensitive to the needs of women who want female only environment.

Chris Butt (a practising midwife) threw a hissy fit when he requested to attend a female only breastfeeding session of the NCT and was directed to an alternative group that wasn’t female only ie. One where male partners could also attend. The NCT is a private organisation that is not part of the NHS and women pay to attend for additional support. The only difference between the group he asked to attend and the other is that the one he wanted to attend was for women who had requested a woman only group . He didn't go to the other group so can’t have been that interested in learning about how to support breastfeeding.

www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/9971617.male-midwife-hits-out-at-breastfeeding-group-ban/

@Blue4YOU

Was anyone suggesting a blanket ban on male midwives though?

Several posters have said that men should not be allowed to be midwives, along with yelling that any man who is interested in midwifery must be a potential rapist because otherwise why would he want to touch or look at fannies etc.