Women’s rights to same-sex health care

[IwantToRetire]

In an era of patient-centred care and growing concern over misconduct in medical settings, why do women still lack the right to choose women consultants for examination and treatment?

Equality legislation has resulted in significant improvements in the workplace for women, both in terms of pay and career paths albeit with some way still to go. It is startling, however, just how primitive our society remains in respect of the treatment of women in other areas of their lives. This article addresses one of these areas – medical care, specifically the right for women to elect examinations and care by women medical practitioners.

Full article https://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/women-s-rights-to-same-sex-health-care
(The author wishes to acknowledge the contribution of his late wife and his daughter whose thoughts and experience gave rise to this article.)

Came across this by chance in Counsel Magazine:
Founded in 1985, COUNSEL is the official monthly Magazine of the Bar of England and Wales, published by LexisNexis on behalf of the Bar Council. COUNSEL is largely written by and for barristers.
https://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/about-us

Just an observation on the above article. It has this tagged on at the bottom:

"This is not (just) an employment rights issue. It is a matter of responding to unmet demand from many women for same-sex medical care. It may also be a question of improving standards; several studies have found that patients undergoing surgery by female surgeons experience better outcomes than those operated on by men."

No citation given for that claim. No Reference, just a claim.

I am not refuting the claim. I honestly have no idea. It is not something I have ever thought about or recall seeing in the news. But for me, tagging another different potential issue onto the one being discussed, just seems off. It is something that conspiracists do. I am not suggesting that the author is a conspiracist here at all. It's just an observation.

It's an excellent article. But if I was to start fact checking the information in it, that is where I would start.

I've seen it in multiple papers though i can't remember which.
From memory male surgeons are more likely to cause harm to and/or kill women and children on the operating table than they do to men.
Female surgeons are less likely to cause harm or death to any patient on the operating table, with the best outcome for Female and child patients.
There's been questions about why this is and the most common reasons being put forward are medical misogyny, more risk taking by male Dr's and female Dr's having smaller hands.
I suspect that its a combination of all of them and other as yet undefined causes but nobody has chased up or studied why this happens so we may never know.
Regardless of the reason if you or anyone you know male or female needs surgery try to get a female surgeon especially if your female or a child.

If that is the case then. I would have thought there would be a full on push to have female surgeons. Surely that should be above having same sex examinations. Not to say the latter is not important, but in terms of weight applied.

I agree however the result of that would be to ban all men from ever being surgeons and thats never going to happen, so the best we can do is push for more women to become surgeons (its still a male dominated field) and give women the right to have female surgeons

It appears it is not so clear cut as the author of the subject article makes out when he says " ...several studies have found that patients undergoing surgery by female surgeons experience better outcomes than those operated on by men."

Do women make safer surgeons? | The Bulletin of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (rcseng.ac.uk)

To cherry pick from that : "A cohort study published in the British Medical Journal in 2022 found no differences in rates of patient death or complications between male and female surgeons in Japan despite the fact that female surgeons were more likely than male surgeons to be assigned high-risk patients"

The article I linked has lots in it. Technical skills V communication etc. And there is no definitive overall finding. Likely because it is an area that has not had equality. So realty, it looks like one of those things that needs equality before conclusive studies can be done.

Anyway, this is what I mean when I say it was an odd thing to tag onto an article. It is an unsubstantiated claim stated as fact. Yes, there is info to back up the claim, but no definitive info.

This would be a really interesting area to study. Off the top of my head, I wondered whether women feel safer with other women, and patients feeling safer would likely lead to better recovery - on top of the potential for medical misogyny

I would have thought that a likely contributor to this is that men have been at the top of this and are in charge of hiring. It’s probably more difficult to become a surgeon, if you’re female, so those who do make it are more likely to be very dedicated to getting there and probably have to be better, just to get that place.

There's one reason why so many women don't end up as surgeons:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-66775015

And there's another reason why so many women patients would prefer single sex care :
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy85lz5ppdo

The latter is just one horrendous example of what happens to some women and children in the NHS. Until the NHS starts weeding out all the predators they manage to appoint, many women will view medial care with concern about keeping themselves safe.

The demands that women STFU about wanting single sex care is one of the reasons predators flourish unchallenged in the NHS.

Here, among other places.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/2833145

Yes. And from the article I linked, it is being studied.

Do you see my point though? When the author of the article tags that as fact on the end of his piece, when it is not proven fact, it detracts from what else he has written?

This is the way I read things. Is there a stand out claim being made that jumps out. If yes, then fact check it. If the claim is not proven, then I won't bother fact checking the rest. It might all be totally true, but that one stand out claim just causes me to switch off.

No difference in recovery/success despite female surgeons getting the more complex cases?

It's so difficult for women to become surgeons in a misogynist profession that I suspect the ones who do make it have to be excellent. So you get an excellent female surgeon but some of the men are less competent.

Getting back to the issues raised in the article rather than obsessing about one side issue, it points out that this is what many women's experience is of healthcare:

"Hundreds of women who sought to serve in our armed forces have come forward alleging that they were sexually abused in medical examinations during recruitment. Operation Pianora, led by Wiltshire Police, is currently investigating over 500 reports of incidents from the 1970s to 2016 at locations across the UK.

In When We Are at Our Most Vulnerable, a 2023 Women’s Rights Network report, Prof Jo Phoenix exposed the extraordinary number of rapes (around 1,500) and sexual assaults (around 4,000) in hospitals, almost invariably of women and girls, from January 2019 to October 2022 which includes the COVID period when access was strictly controlled".

There is a massive push for women to be framed as unreasonable or petty or pearl clutching for wanting single sex intimate care, single sex wards, showers and toilets when in hospital. It's all part of the open campaign to roll back on women's rights, to deny sex based differences with the usual useful idiots in the NHS promoting it.

The data and repeated cases of medics in court / sanctioned and struck off for sex offences suggests this is another issue the NHS is failing to tackle.

As a non-britton (central europe) I can't see how being able to limit myself to a female medical practitioner would make me more equal. It feels a bit Talibanish.

(Taking the female surgeons superiority topic aside).

Yes there isn't an equality in the medical knowledge about male and female bodies and biochemistry. We need more women in those fields. But we need every health care practitioner to deliver a good standard of services, not to give up and say "if you don't like it, wait for a female doctor".
If someone isn't good enough for women, they aren't fit to practice at all.

I'm wondering now what is so much different between UK and big chunk of the continent to lead to so different wishes.

ETA: I see now the post above mine, which covers similar topic, thanks @MrsOvertonsWindow
I'm now wondering whether the UK is so much worse in this, or whether we have so much lower reporting rate.

(And I absolutely agree with single sex spaces being available wherever it is relevant and with them being actually single sex)

I had day surgery yesterday at the Victoria hospital in fife and was put in a 7 bay room which was mixed sex, it didn't make me feel safe or comfortable and I was up and dressed before I'd been back on the ward for 5 mins as I'm very difficult to knock out and keep out, I'm usually awake before I hit resus. I know that in that respect im lucky but most aren't and were waking up to men in the bed next to them with the curtains wide open, the fear on the faces of some of those women was clear to see even from across the room.
We must return to fully single sex wards

That's a good question - are the rates of rape / sexual assaults higher in UK hospitals compared to other countries? I've no idea. There are all sorts of factors.
Some building designs enable assaults rather than prevent them
Lack of staffing and poor awareness by staff of the need to safeguard patients from predators.
Poor security
Lax policies about visitors
Predatory staff and colleagues being too intimidated to report them... etc etc

The Victoria Hospital Blackpool rape / murder of a patient linked upthread is a grim example of a toxic organisation failing to provide even the most basic of safety with staff completely failing to notice (or deliberately covering up) that a woman had been raped and murdered in her bed (likely by a staff member).

At the end of the day - women's safety and health needs just don't matter enough to senior NHS staff. The unforgivable maternity scandals continue unabated despite countless enquiries. Medical misogyny is a thing. I can guarantee that the majority of NHS Trusts who've wailed about the SC judgment & having to provide safe single sex showers, wards, toilets will have inadequate maternity services, have numerous allegations against staff and have endless rainbow lanyards, flags along with policies that intimidate staff out of raising legitimate concerns.

Until these senior staff are properly held to account for their failures to provide basic safety and safe medical care, they'll sit around in their offices writing polices about how to wedge male sex offenders onto women's wards. Link for those who think this is exaggeration:

https://archive.ph/6PUIm

Dear God, this horrifies me. All my surgery had been gynae related at Liverpool Womens so no men on those wards thank God. I’ve told my DH if I have to go on a general ward anywhere and there are men there I want to leave asap. ICU is different, but i’m not staying in a ward with men who can get out of bed.

I think you haven't understood the point of the comment.

There have been many threads on FWR about how badly women as patients are treated by so called professional males in the health industry.

ie this is a feminist forum. So likely as not it isn't about women being inadequate but about how badly men behave.

Why didn't you fact check before posting?

You would have found examples on FWR as well as in published material.

Did you actual comprehend the point of this man writing this article, let alone the significance it might or could have given where it is published.

That a legal point is being made about why women should have the right to women only provision.

Is the statement the author made true ?

The thing is they had 4 day surgery 7 bed bays/rooms all were mixed sex and they weren't even split by surgeon I know this as I had to walk past them on my way in and out and the same groups of Dr's were checking on patients split over all of them.
Being conscious when everyone else is still out of it is rather informative