Jennifer Melle wins settlement from NHS

[RoyalCorgi]

Haven't seen a thread about this anywhere else, but Jennifer Melle, the nurse who refused to refer to a convicted sex offender by his preferred pronouns, and was disciplined, has won a settlement from the NHS trust she works for.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2vlxdnnpqo

He was a violent, convicted paedophile chained to a prison guard and was getting agitated.

It's absolutely bloody imperative that she let whoever she's talking to on the phone know that he's a man.

Bloody hell.

And thank goodness the trust agreed, eventually. After she went to the press.

Which was their only beef!!

Wankers. If you don't want your female staff to go to the press, don't let them be abused by men pretending to be women.

The Times article is much clearer

http://archive.today/FTaJj

Having read the times article above it's clear that she wasn't asking about what specific treatment was needed for a male bodied person. She was reporting that the patient wanted to leave. She could have said "Susan Jones in cubicle 5 is asking to self-discharge".

Of course he wanted to leave but wasn’t he handcuffed to two police officers at the time? and thank goodness he was as he lunged at her.

Poorly behaved men don’t deserve special consideration.

I'm sure it was about a catheter.

So presumably, if I recall correctly, he wanted to leave, so the catheter had to be taken out. In which case his sex is vital.

Hmmm I also note the 'sorry, but' from the NHS trust.

She's an NHS nurse, she'll be rushed off her feet! Having to flawlessly and without fail engage in serious emotional labour and baroque mental gymnastics to deny the evidence of her own eyes and mis-sex someone, while in the process of communicating medical needs that are sex specific, is making an incredibly heavy demand of anyone.

Furthermore, she is a committed Christian, and her beliefs prevent her from lying about this guy's sex. She is as entitled to her religious beliefs as he is to his belief that he can become a woman. He doesn't have any entitlement to force her to comply with his beliefs and perform obeisance to them whatsoever.

The trust obviously thought they were going to look like racist misogynists if they allowed it to go to court.

Unfortunately that ship sailed already.

And they can't possibly think they're kidding anyone.

Women just have to keep doing this, don't they? Just have to keep plugging away, one a a time

Why do people have to tie themselves in knots to avoid offending these sorts? Jennifer has been through hell with all this and Im very glad for her that its been settled.
Being a NHS nurse is hard enough in these times without deliberately making things harder!!

Absolutely.

“Private medical information” - your sex is not private medical information.

Yes exactly. The patient's sex is particularly relevant in this instance, and she was talking to someone else on the phone.
The BBC is falsely saying that she actually addressed him as Mr, implementing that she was deliberately insulting him.

Yes that’s what I remember about this issue from the details reported last year. Jennifer was speaking to a doctor on the telephone.

Plus, women are entirely within their rights to refer to a man as a man.

And the trust's issues is that she told everyone! Not that she did it, but that she told everyone what their reaction was.

Pretending it was about patient confidentiality. As far as I know, his identity is completely unknown.

This whole story is somewhat confusing though as there was also the disciplinary matter of whether she broke confidentiality.

I'm delighted that the outcome is positive for Jennifer.

But it isn't clear what the hospital has conceded, if anything. Is the payout because they agree they were wrong to accuse her of breaking confidentiality? Or because they accept she was within her rights to call the patient Mr? Or for another reason?

Why? The person was chained to a prison guard. Was asking to self discharge. The nurse wasn't responsible for whether this person was a danger to the public, I assume the concern was around medical safety to discharge.

How did she know this person was a convicted peadophile at the time? I can only see that the person arrived from the sex offender wing of a male prison.

If this person had been an "ordinary" trans person and NOT a violent and revolting sex offender, would it have been more or less ok to call them "Mr Jones" ?

I would defend the right of a victim of this person to call him "him". I think a professional person is held to a different standard. If they are going to treat them at all. Either a peadophile deserves medical care and professionalism or they don't. We can't say "We'll treat this ill sex offender professionally, whilst thinking they are the dregs of humanity, but not this one, because this one is trans".

How disrespectful. I have noticed recently that the press frequently refer to victims by their surnames only, not using titles or including first names. Referring to people by surname used to exclusively be for criminals.

Nurse uses (polite) male pronoun to describe an obviously male patient in the context of discussing the removal of a catheter from his male organ.

The NHS were always going to settle, it's just shocking that they have allowed this to go on for as long as it has.

I hope her lawyers pick up on that!

So glad to hear this.

She referred to him as "Mister" on the phone talking to the doctor. The convicted paedophile overheard her calling him "Mister". He had no business to be earwigging a private phone conversation. He cannot compel people to use female pronouns when referring to him particularly when he isn't part of the conversation. It's perfectly OK for her to refer to him as "Mister".

The sex of a person may indeed be of paramount importance in certain medical situations. There are ways and ways of saying that in situations where it is important. One could say "the patient in cubicle 5 who is a trans woman, born male" or "Susan Jones, who is transgender". You don't have to say "Mr Jones".
She could even have said "Susan Jones, who was previously male". None of those are disrespectful.

Born male - still male.
Who is transgender - doesn't answer the question as to whether the person is male or female
Previously male - still male, sex change is impossible.

All your suggestions are just nonsense. Language, particularly in medical settings, should be clear, simple, easily and quickly understood.

And do you think any single one of your nonsense suggestions would have met with the approval of the patient? Of course they wouldn't, complete pandering to his determonation to be viewed as and referred to as a woman and female would be acceptable as his violent and nasty reaction proved.

He WAS treated professionally. Nobody denied him medical treatment. Nobody abused him. All that happened - which caused him to racially abuse the nurse - is that Jennifer Melle referred to his sex and didn't lie about it.

Somebody's biological sex is a FACT. It's ok to refer to facts. Especially where the facts are crucially pertinent to the conversation.

It was medically important that the consultant the nurse was talking to had accurate information as to his sex and hence the anatomy of his genitals. The patient has no right whatsoever to demand that the nurse depart from her own beliefs to pander to his.

Quite. Nobody has the right to control the speech of others.

The process is the punishment.