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'.

Every beast screening clinic is staffed by entirely female staff. Why? Because the NHS recognises that women undergoing an intimate procedure prefer to have another woman.

It is not indulgence to make female patients comfortable

Breast! Not beast

And there was the lady who refused a smear test when she asked for a female nurse and got an MTF trans one, then was smeared as a bigot. Women don't ask for female only care for fun.

Sorry @ScaryFaces can you explain how staff would be "subjected to abuse" by being asked not to be in a room? I've been asked at work to leave rooms, and also not let into rooms at times, for a variety of reasons, and I have never found this to be abusive.

This isn't true of every trust. I work in imaging and rotate through breast screening. Our consultants are mostly male. They do the consultations, as well as being available for certain scans and aspirations/procedures etc. We, or course, always have female sonographers and chaperones available as well but not that many female consultants. We've noticed that not many women specialise in Radiology so may be why there isn't as many female consultants in the pool.

Let's not forget this one either -

Woman was raped on a women's ward by a transwoman. Hospital denied it happened as there were no men on the ward.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hospital-dismissed-claim-of-rape-by-trans-attacker-bssxvbqch

I'm talking about the standard screening clinics where you go for a regular scan. The nurse and radiographer are always female in my experience and those of all my friends (we're of an age where they're a regular occurrence). I wouldn't expect consultants to be all women.

That's why I said breast screening.

Surely it’s not possible to have a department of all female staff.

I would say a large proportion of nurses and care workers are female anyway and in a perfect world there would be areas of completely separate sexes but the NHS is short staffed so I think it’s a case of getting the workers in who can do the job, regardless of sex.

It’s like toilets in the supermarkets.
They are single sexed but it also has a sign saying there are male and female workers, as it’s just not possible to be choosy about who they hire.

I remember Liam Hackett kicking off at a hospital because he was made to stand in the corridor while his friend was undergoing breast screening. They explained it was to ensure the privacy and dignity of the other women.

but the NHS is short staffed so I think it’s a case of getting the workers in who can do the job, regardless of sex.

This isn't about the NHS. It was a private hospital.

Bad PR move. Hospitals there are often used by wealthy folks from countries who would kick up an unholy stink. But didn’t the Portland also have something like this a while back?

And also because you can't provide them with the private en suite icu room they're demanding because you physically don't have any? Ultimately this is a case of a customer demanding a service the hospital couldn't provide, and the hospital said "Sorry, we can't provide that". The rest is Daily Mail outrage fluffing combined with a patient who was clearly primed to be paranoid and see scary transgenders everywhere.

The hospital didn't say 'we can't provide that' though, did they? That came later.

The patient also didn't 'demand' that provision. She said she assumed they would provide it.

But even if we took this later claim on good faith, was it not a massive overreaction on the hospital's part to unilaterally decide to cancel the operation without any discussion or opportunity to agree a compromise? I would expect if that was the genuine reason for the cancellation, the reasonable response would have been to urgently contact the patient to explain what could and could not be accommodated and to see if they were happy to proceed on that basis.

This.

I've just spent 3 weeks visiting someone in hospital (male). I didn't meet a single male nurse, OT or physio. They were all women. Even most of the doctors were female.

Oh yes, the head of the anti bullying charity in sensed that women are allowed single sex spaces.

Hospitals there are often used by wealthy folks from countries who would kick up an unholy stink.

She pointed out that this is a request which is sometimes made for cultural reasons which the hospital would presumably be more amenable to.

I almost can't believe this is happening.SURELY this has to be illegal...?

But even if we took this later claim on good faith, was it not a massive overreaction on the hospital's part to unilaterally decide to cancel the operation without any discussion or opportunity to agree a compromise? I would expect if that was the genuine reason for the cancellation, the reasonable response would have been to urgently contact the patient to explain what could and could not be accommodated and to see if they were happy to proceed on that basis.

YY. This is a private hospital. The reason for the abrupt cancellation, not even communicated to her by a senior member of staff, is clearly ideological.

No we are not, don’t speak for all women

She's clearly referring to a subset of women

I haven't read the article, but insisting on all-female care in an ITU environment (if that is what might be needed post-op) is difficult to provide. Usually there is only one registrar on call overnight who might be a man and there might not be a woman willing to swap into their shifts. Nursing-wise it should be easy to provide.

No we are not, don’t speak for all women

She didn't claim to be! She very clearly said "I sometimes think..." and then "women can...", not "women are".

Comprehension is not your strong suit, is it?

Plus, you’d really have to go out of your way to NOT be able to find a female nurse.

if this was a chap who had requested a male nurse, perhaps we’d have to really consider the ‘oh, we could only get opposite sex nurses to cover those particular shifts’ but this is nursing, and 89% of the profession is female.

I accept that it’s a much bigger ask when it comes to female consultants but male consultants will expect to have a female nurse or female chaperone present, because it’s well known that many women will not seek the healthcare they need if it means being alone with a unknown male.

The only male HCPs who I have ever known to be offended by women who request same sex care, or insisting on a chaperone if same sex care isn’t available, are the ones with a special internal gender identity.

it’s very worrying that a HCPs feelings have been allowed to take priority over a patient’s physical health.

Hopefully this will soon be tested in court and we’ll have a definitive answer as to how this particular clash of rights should be handled.

When I go for breast scans, it has always been a female who has conducted the scan.

As stated upthread it isn't always viable to only have females available, especially given the massive staff shortages currently. I work the the limitations of the system and quite frankly I didn't have any issue saying what I felt comfortable with and they were responsive and obliging, no way was I going to give them a hard time about having a group of medical students watching the procedure. We have to work in a less than 100% perfect world and speak up like I did or state at the time of booking the appointment that due to the nature of the procedure will it be possible to be treated by a female medic.