Women labelled ‘patients of childbearing potential’ on private London hospital form

[AngeloMysterioso]

Telegraph article about the Cromwell Hospital in London and their utterly ridiculous “de-gendered” patient info forms which refer to women as “patients of childbearing potential”.

Which rules out infertile women and post-menopausal women- who are all still women.

I suppose we should be grateful the form still refers to nursing mother and doesn’t say something equally ridiculous like feeding parent…

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/09/women-labelled-childbearing-potential-cromwell-hospital/

I notice that the ejaculator in charge at the Cromwell claims it's more inclusive.
What a prat.

What more inclusive than saying 'Female patients aged 10-60'? Or even just 'Female patients'! Or is he worried that such a description would exclude male patients?

Might have been the queer nit comb thread where someone pointed out any press statement that begins "we are proud to be inclusive" is bound to be completely cloth-eared against whatever it has been accused of. And so it proves again with this 'hospital of beclowning potential'.

The Cromwell relies heavily on a large contingent of wealthy patients coming for treatment from the Middle East. I do wonder what they will make of all this.

MrsOvertonsWindow I have to say that ‘Ejaculator’ and ‘Ejaculator in Charge’ need to become the go-to titles for any clowns pushing this shit. See how they bloody like it.

The rest of the form is OK. It refers to 'mother' and 'breastfeeding'.

I dunno - I guess I don't have much of a negative reaction to this other than to think it is a bit clunky.

Next time the NHS asks me 'could you be pregnant?' I'm going to say yes to mess with the stats (I'm 69). If they don't bother about biological reality why should I? After all, I COULD be, it's just vanishingly unlikely.

Well, I suppose it does include transmen and NB's and all the other reality deniers who (still) have what may be a functioning female reproductive system.

"Women and female reality deniers of/with childbearing potential" would cover it.

I think it’s ok….?

I think it’s ok….?

Yes, I don't have that much of a problem with it.

Does it mean if you’re not having sex you can skip it?

Presumably this is intended to prevent situations like the awful one reported recently in Australia- test everyone who might conceivably be pregnant whatever they tell you about how they identify. Yes it should be obvious that that’s only females but given that our legal system purports to be able to deem people male, there’s still room for confusion. There shouldn’t be but there is.

I think it's clunky. Women who don't have English as a first language and women with poor literacy are going to struggle to make sense of that phrase. Health communications should be very, very clear and use simple, unambiguous language. This seems to be one of the many things everybody knew not long ago which have now been swept aside as unimportant.

I think it’s a better heading than “women” because not all women are fertile/of childbearing potential. I’d like to know I can skip that section because I’m too old to have child bearing potential even though I’m still a woman.

You might inadvertently exclude yourself from lifesaving medication and/or treatments though by saying you might be pregnant.

It is probably to do with need for pregnancy testing before anaesthesia/surgery or X ray exposure. In both these scenarios risks and benefits need considering before proceeding if the patient is female

I'd assume that the NHS would be intelligent enough to realise at 69 I'm not and their question is stupid. Although the fact that they ask a 69 year old in the first place does make me wonder.

It's no different to calling women 'breeders', 'cervix-owners' or 'uterus-havers'.

It is different imho. It’s saying only those women who have potential to child bear need answer the questions in the block. It’s a subset of women, not redefining women.

t's no different to calling women 'breeders', 'cervix-owners' or 'uterus-havers'.

These terms refer to women as body parts. They are insulting.

'Patient' refers to the status of the woman as a patient - a perfectly normal word that describes a relationship to a HC service or HCP.

You’re the one being silly here, I’m afraid. It’s best practice to ask everyone rather than leave it to the discretion of a HCP who might be rushing/overworked/thinking about what’s for tea/wearing the wrong glasses and hence misreading the form etc etc. It’s a system designed to minimise human error, premised on the idea that it’s better for a thousand women to have to answer a pointless question than for one woman not to be asked when she should have been, which is perfectly reasonable.

In this day and age with IVF and fertility injections…I’d not be so sure. A 72yr old woman had a baby in India.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/woman-in-her-70s-may-be-oldest-ever-to-give-birth/

I accompanied my septugenarian father to a health assessment recently. They asked him: are you at risk of pregnancy? Same gender ideology inclusivity at play.

But as offensive as it is., it still would not help in cases like that dreadful 'trans man' hysterectomy case. As that person was describing themself as a 'man' , (albeit a' man' who had had PIV sex with a male within the last 4 months), they would refuse that description of them self.

You’re the one being silly here, I’m afraid

Oh well, that's me told. 🙄

I accompanied my septugenarian father to a health assessment recently. They asked him: are you at risk of pregnancy? Same gender ideology inclusivity at play

Apparently the HCP who might be rushing/overworked/thinking about what’s for tea/wearing the wrong glasses and hence misreading the form etc etc can't tell the difference between men and women, either. That's the problem with gender ideology inclusivity - it leads you further and further down the garden path of ridiculousness.

I'd have no objection to womenv referred to as 'patients' in Obstetrics, Gynaecology, Labour Ward etc, as all patients in those contexts are women. But in general medical care, where patients may be female or male, it is offensive to erase women in order to pretend that there is any lack of clarity over which half of the population has the potential to be pregnant.

10 years ago I would have read that and thought it was just a weird way to phrase the question, and my concern would have been about it being un-necessarily convoluted English. Now I see it through a wider lense of the constant attempts to erase women under the excuse of 'inclusivity'.