Hospital refuses to operate after woman requests all-female care

[Imnobody4]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11316141/Hospital-bans-sex-assault-victim-op-female-care-request.html

I feel quite sick at this.

She was stunned then to receive an email from the hospital's chief executive Maxine Estop Green telling her the operation was off.

She told her the hospital 'did not share her beliefs' and she should make alternative arrangements for her surgery.

The message added the hospital was committed to protecting staff from what it described as 'unacceptable distress'.

Emma urged them to reconsider, adding in a further message she thought they had misunderstood her requests, which she said were entirely within the law.

The hospital said it would offer a private room but would NOT facilitate her requests for single-sex care after her operation.

It also mentioned her comment about pronouns and said it had a responsibility to protect staff from 'discrimination and harassment'.

Make every effort is key. All it take is for the charge nurse that night to be male along with the reg covering the ward. You then need a procedure that requires intimate care say a catheter or suturing of that region as an emergency. What are you going to do? A) disturb another ward to find a female or b) accept gender doesn't matter? What if a male does it with a chaperone, is that acceptable?

Well we don't know, as they didn't bother to discuss it.

If they had supported the movement that gender has to be genetic you would be all sing their praises.

What on earth does this mean? The claim that gender identities are innate and genetically predetermined sounds like a trans activist philosophical position, to be honest.

Actually never mind. I don't think I can cope with more gender identity theory today.

I think that readers can see that your posts are bereft of empathy. I genuinely hope you are not a health care provider yourself.

@sleepyscientist - she asked for her staff to be female. As has been mentioned many times, the Princess Grace treats a lot of devout Muslim women from the Middle East. They too don't want post op care from men. No one needs to give private information.

Surely if you know that your patient would prefer you don't treat her, for whatever reason, you don't, out of respect for her?

The hospital is under no obligation to "out" their staff who happen to be homosexual or trans etc.

What about breaks, should staff breaks be organised so she doesn't have to have care from a male in an emergency.

I don't think this case is about what happens in an emergency. It's about what happens during routine pre operative and post operative care. My understanding is that the patient knew that some of the surgical staff would be men and accepted this. What she wanted was to be helped in and out of bed, into the shower etc by a woman.

We are all the same

No, we are not. Requesting female only staff for intimate health care pre and post op is perfectly legal and reasonable, you do not have to be of a particular religion or a sexual abuse survivor to do so and no women should ever have to justify it anyway.

For many intimate procedures on women male doctors ARE chaperoned by a female member of staff anyway so your little 'gotcha' is nothing of the fucking sort.

She did not ask for information about biology she asked for assurance that those treating her pre and post op would be female only.

If someone is happy to have mixed-sex intimate care themselves, that is fine.

They do not however have the right to 'give away' the rights of other people to request (and indeed have) single-sex intimate care.

It's also very telling that there are posters on this thread that want to make it appear that requesting single-sex intimate care is somehow unreasonable, difficult for a hospital to provide or so old fashioned that it should be done away with.

I agree with previous posters, they tell on themselves RE their motives with every post that they make.

What happened to ‘the customer is always right’, eh?

A big reason for forking out for private services, whether that be in a health or education or residential care homes is because paying enormous amounts of cash enables a more tailored, individualised plan.

You’ve got it arse backwards if you think a private company should be prioritised over the needs of the people who keep that private company afloat by purchasing the services.

No hospital needs to ‘out’ anyone. They simply need to make sure male staff acknowledge and respond to requests for female only care.

Your leveraging of same sex attracted or bisexual staff in this argument is homophobia and biphobic but I am sure you realise the difference. No?

A patient requesting non-LGB care IS based on prejudice and hate. A patient requesting same sex care is legal and legitimate and only a misogynist would declare it hateful.

Why on earth are you dragging sexual orientation into this?

The protected characteristic that is relevant in this scenario is SEX. The nurse’s gender identity is literally immaterial to the patient’s request, only the sex of the staff providing intimate care matters.

Personally I don't see males and females differently considering all can rape and abuse. It's things like this even being positively discussed that open avenue to refusals based of race or religion. We are all the same

Thanks for spelling out this pure stupidity so plainly.

Anyone who is silly enough to think that male and female humans are identical has no understanding of the EQ10.

It’s fine that some posters don’t give a shit about the sex of their nursing caregiver but they don’t get to over rule someone else’s non-consent.

Consent isn’t decided by a show of hands.

No means no.

@sleepyscientist

It is interesting to see that this supposedly left-wing philosophy believes that private hospitals should be above basic humanity.

This has been a great thread for showing the homophobic and misogynistic side of people’s attempts to coerce female patients that they have no choice but to accept male people giving them intimate care.

it really cannot be clearer than these last posts. It is remarkable.

Personally I don't see males and females differently considering all can rape and abuse. It's things like this even being positively discussed that open avenue to refusals based of race or religion.

As women are physically incapable of rape as it is defined under UK law, that is quite a leap.

And as for opening the door for refusals based on race or religion, as I said above, I am sure that people who only wanted to be attended by one particular race have their request turned down but are not refused medical attention.

I terms of us all being the same, consider this thought experiment.

You're drunk, vulnerable, half dressed and fall asleep in a room. A stranger enters the room.

Would you rather they were a male or female stranger?

I am sure that 99%+ of women would feel significantly safer knowing the stranger were female; pretty sure a good proportion of men would prefer them to be female too.

We are not all the same. Men rape, abuse, and commit violence to people at a far far higher rater than women do. Look at any crime stats.

Sure there are the occasional female sex offender but the vast vast majority are men. Men as a sex class behave differently towards each other and towards women than women as a sex class do. Has been since the dawn of time

This is an extract from a piece written by the magnificent Dr EM, who is disabled. She wrote it in response to a twerp telling her she was 'disgusting' for wanting single-sex carers to provide intimate care. Seems appropriate for this thread.

extract

If me speaking about what it is like to live with a severe disability is ‘disgusting’ to you because I required female only care I don’t think the problem is with my outlook but yours. I had no knowledge or say in who was caring for me, being in a coma. When I was awake I did have male and female nurses change my tubes, feed me, look after me. The NHS is staffed by super heroes. What I was talking about was the need for female only intimate care. I described how as a schoolgirl I was stripped naked and washed by strangers, for months. How I hated it and couldn’t communicate my distress nor move my body away and how it has had a lasting impact. The term ‘intimate care’ obscures what we are talking about. I still get a sense of deep shame and hurt to tell people this. It is not just one’s back,legs and other limbs which are washed, it is your vulva, your breasts. Strangers are touching these parts of you. What about my humanity? My last shred of dignity? This was distressing enough with same-sex nurses, can you imagine what it would have been like having an unknown male do this to me?

Although I was still a teenager, like a staggering number of women and girls, by this stage of my life I had already experienced violence and sexual abuse at the hands of men. It had already made me weird about bathrooms. I lost a lot of long term memory in the accident, like a scrap book having clumps of pages ripped out, but for my eternal punishment some of the memories I would rather loose have remained. Time has not dimmed them, nor my reaction to male bodies.

If we discard all of this and focus on the males (like you like to do), it is not safe to have mixed sex care of the vulnerable. 98% of sex offenders are male, and sex offenders will move to positions where they have access to victims. This is why sex offenders tend to work in certain professions and not on oil rigs. The research showing that disabled women are more vulnerable to abuse has been dug out and provided by torpid ferret

piece continues here: Why Disabled Women Requesting Female-Only Intimate Care is Not Disgusting

Thanks for posting that Purgatory. Dr Em writes very well about a difficult and personal subject. I have just read the extract you posted extract currently, however, I will read the full article later.

The line about her last 'shred of dignity' really spoke to me as someone who has needed intimate care. So much is taken from you in that situation, having a say in regard to consenting to who cares for you (mixed-sex care or same-sex care) is so vital. It is a tiny bit of autonomy when that very thing is all but gone.

I am beginning to wonder if we are seeing more than just Queer theory in action in regard to male/female or man/woman. Are right/wrong and yes/no being blurred or queered by some? Is the very nature of concent being eroded? Is the aim to have women being unabe to say 'no'?

If you are in a situation where you can't even get up and move away, the concept of concent is vital. Everyone knowing what has been agreed to and what hasn't been agreed to and working from the basis that concent is essential works. It must be defended.

Sorry about the repeat of the word 'extract' I can't find an 'edit' option. I'll have to remember to proof read in future.

I think that when you look at the posts here and on the Belfast changing room thread you understand that yes indeed consent has been effectively ignored by posters. All in the name of inclusion.

It is really clear that there is a no compromise in the ‘allowing males do what they want’ position. Consent is now prioritised towards the needs of male individuals not towards any female person.

Is the very nature of concent being eroded

consent as an option really hasn't been around very long.
But from the day it was first mooted, people (men) have been trying to find a work around. Or just ignoring it.

Bonkers how a certain crop of (mostly) young people can’t see it

They will demand enthusiastic and (‘informed’) consent for themselves whilst denying it to others.

Turns out ‘bodily autonomy’ doesn’t extend as far as disabled women - they get a man in lipstick whether they like it or not.

Pretty sure if the blue-haired folx could objectively hear themselves they would realise this is the ‘rape culture’ they pretend to decry.

Shame they’ve got them’s ears stuffed with glitter and rainbows.

That Dr Em piece is excellent.

They think properly 'progressive', liberal women wouldn't refuse consent in the first place.

For them, it's a bit like encouraging toddlers to eat broccoli and other leafy green vegetables; you keep serving broccoli because you think it's good for children. The children may say eurgh no the first few times they encounter broccoli, so you serve it again, in the expectation that repeated exposure to broccoli will turn the child's initial disgust to first reluctant acceptance, and then perhaps even enjoyment.

Exact same mindset, but applied to adult women refusing to let men clean their vulvas. They think they're fostering women's personal development by trying to wear down our resistance to males washing our vulvas.