What can the NHS do if trans-identified patients refuse wards for their sex?

[Whatchamacallitt]

I've been looking at Transgender Reddit. Mostly it's just people comparing single sex wards to the Holocaust. But I found this thread particularly interesting.

Clearly they have every intention of being as obstructive and difficult for staff as possible by refusing to be placed on a ward for their sex whilst still demanding medical treatment.

Does anyone know what the legal situation would be for the hospital under these circumstances? Could they discharge the patient for refusing suitable accommodation or would their ill health be the priority? Would they allocate a much needed side room to the trans-identified patient to placate their temper tantrum?

Patients can refuse treatment unless they're considered mentally incompetent / they're sectioned or a hospital has gone through the courts.
These people are used to holding others hostage in order to get their demands met - men insisting on sleeping on women's wards alongside non consenting women and being given what they want.

Now presunably they won't get what they want. They'll get much pandering & faux sympathy but NHS staff time is limited. If they're dealing with endless toddler level tantrums presumably the toddlers will be told to sling their hook if they're unwilling to accept whatever medical intervention is offered? Abusive tactics are usually called out with Security staff becoming involved.

Offer them treatment in their sex appropriate ward if they refuse they refuse and do t get treatment.

I understand corridors are mixed sex if they want that....

You'd have to be absolute fool to turn down medical treatment that requires a bed, wherever it is.

Patients refuse admission all the time. Usually we would try & persuade them to stay. Anyone playing funny buggers got short shrift as we didn't have any time for nonsense.

Patients can refuse treatment so long as they are deemed mentally competent.

Hospitals can refuse to treat patients too if the patient does not have a life-threatening condition Normally this happens is if the patient is violent or abusive. If the person is not violent towards staff then it is going to get legally complicated.

Security will get involved if things get tricky.

It wouldn't be the hospital doing the discharging though would it? It would be self discharge.
If the hospital offer a bed to a man with a broken leg on men's ward A, and give the man directions/a porter to get there, and the man says, "no I'm not going to ward A, I want ward B instead," then staff just say "sorry, ward B is for women/children/people with cancer only, not men with broken legs. We have a bed for you on ward A ". If the patient does not want the correct bed on offer he can only choose to self discharge.

The op of that thread appears to be a “trans man” who is happy with a third space if she can’t go on the male ward. It’s the men who are demanding that women have to have them there.

I had to call the police once to eject a particularly unpleasant character who jumped off his trolley & squared up to me when I told him he didn't need to be in hospital.

They're also making some pretty wild claims on there about a transwoman who apparently died of cancer in 2023 in Wolverhampton NHS Trust. He presented with a large stage 4 tumour and they're said he "Died because she was trans and not admitted to a women's cancer ward."

It's a tragedy when anyone dies of cancer. The sad reality is that if you aren't under and oncologist and turn up in A&E with Stage 4 cancer, your options are most likely palliative, not treatment. The poor soul was seeking help too late, from all I could find about it.

But nevermind the facts, let's weaponise a personal tragedy and rant on Reddit about it. The disrespectful loons.

When the issue was raised that women who could not access mixed sex wards/treatment would either have the choice of enduring in distress or discharging themselves, no one cared.

I'm not sure why it's expected everyone appreciate men with gender identities cannot be treated similarly?

But, not being a sociopathic monster, obviously a patient with barriers like this should be cared for as sensitively as possible, and I thought the guidance was clear on this? Side rooms may not always be available, but I'd expect all effort to be made to ensure privacy, dignity and sense of safety as much as is possible with the available resources and the immediate needs of the patient to be in clear sight of nurses if very unwell/have access to equipment etc. And have no doubt that staff will be caring and supportive as opposed to the gaslighting and threats they were told to give women who raised the same concerns.

These men will be much, much better considered than they ever felt women needed to be.

I think it's a stage we're going to go through. On the other thread there was a quote from Reddit where a man told by his manager not to use women's single sex toilets but to use the gender neutral ones, tried to demand but what if he was absolutely desperate and the women's ones were nearer? The manager thankfully shut that down and was clear that the single sex women's spaces were not available to him in any circumstances whatsoever. But it's always wangle wangle wangle.

And that's what this is. A determination that while there are plenty of possibilities and options to be explored to meet their needs and wishes, the only desired and acceptable one involves removing single sex spaces from women.

It's already the case that if a woman (of the XX chromosome old-fashioned type) has an urgent clinical need to be admitted into a hospital but the only bed available is on a single-sex male ward, the clinical need takes priority and she is put on the male ward, with additional safeguarding measures in place to ensure that she's not at any risk. The breach of single-sex policy must be reported.

Therefore it's pretty much the same scenario for a transwoman. If they have a clinical need for treatment, they can be admitted to the single-sex male ward, the existing procedures to protect her safety and dignity can be in place (to whatever extent the over-stretched staff can manage) the same as they are when an XX woman is in that situation. The only difference is that there's no need to report a breach of single-sex policy, because there hasn't been one, that's solely an admin issue.

This kind of compromise happens to very sick women quite regularly. My granny had to spend time on an otherwise all-male geriatric ward after she had a fall, which was awful for her - she had all her marbles and was 100% aware of what was going on. Many of the men had advanced dementia and had lost a lot of inhibitions both in their language and in exposing themselves, it was horrible. A transwoman would equally find it horrible, but would not be being treated any worse than my granny was.

This road is longer than any sane person would have thought.

At least society is travelling in the right direction on this at last.

You can thank India W for that one. He posted that up on X when the guidance was posted. Horrible man

He is a ghoulish person, isn't he. Ghoulish and ranting.

But, not being a sociopathic monster, obviously a patient with barriers like this should be cared for as sensitively as possible,

You know what? I could do a pretty good "sociopathic monster" if called for! For at least a decade, no one cared one bit how women suffered, missed out on treatment, lost appointments, suffered in the workplace, were gaslighted, told they were bigots, and even been refused treatment, etc., all because we couldn't be sure that "women" meant "only women" and the NHS constantly ducked and weaved around the issues and the law. If this had been happening to men, half of NHS managers would have been sacked years ago.

Now some men are sad and panicking and they want consideration. F-that! Along with the rest of us trying to find our way through the various deficiencies of the NHS, they can take what they are given, or go home and suffer! No sympathy from me.

This would not be an issue if all patients were offered the privacy they deserve.

Privacy is balanced against the needs of the service. Some new hospitals have all single patient rooms but the vast majority of hospitals do not & never will.

Tantrum, right. Interesting you don't characterise a cis woman objecting to being next to men as having a 'tantrum'.

Infantilising people other than white, straight cis men is a really common tactic, done to women and people of colour forever. Maybe don't deploy that word, because your contempt's showing.

Anyway, mixed wards are common. Very, very common. Men work on women's wards, so they are heavily surveilled. I've been on mixed wards, and visited family on them. With the NHS on its knees, bed pressure dictates this.

Maybe you didn't see that a trans woman died and wasn't given appropriate pain relief in 2023, because she was othered the way you're othering trans people now.

This is such a non-issue, and it's going to cause a lot of trans people to avoid getting treatment.

Once again, it's not trans women assaulting patients in hospital - it's the staff. Hospital trusts know this, so they make sure wards are regularly patrolled.

What really happened with the trans woman, Joelle? Because the truth is in there somewhere, but I suspect not in any of the tales to be found on Reddit.

They were begging for a bed on any ward, male or female apparently, but weren’t given one. So they were in a side room instead. When my dad had cancer, he was also in a room of his own - all the cancer patients were. I thought that was usual, maybe it’s not, but if people are dying (my dad was), then surely you don’t want them on a ward??

Well no, the woman (no need to assume gender identity), is entitled to be in a single sex ward, so making a fuss would not be a tantrum. A man demanding to be put in a female ward is not entitled to be there so kicking up a fuss would indeed be having a tantrum. Hope this helps.

women are entitled to single sex spaces for privacy, safety and dignity. If men are upset by this that is in them. You seem very keen to push mixed sex spaces, why is that? Surely if TW are in danger in male spaces, they’d be in just as much danger in mixed sex spaces as the males they are afraid of would also be in those spaces.

If someone is stupid enough to refuse treatment because they can’t get their own way, then that’s on them isn’t it? Why should women have to give up single sex spaces because some men demand it? What material benefit does this give to women and how will it make them safer?

If they won't accept what's on offer them maybe they're not as sick as they're making out and shouldn't be in hospital anyway.
Men go in men's wards, if men refuse that's on them, they can suffer the consequences of their actions, nobody else is to blame but them.

Yep, if mixed sex wards are fine then putting TIMs on a male ward is also fine. They think they are women so just need to be told it's a mixed ward where they happen to be the only woman...

Once again, it's not trans women assaulting patients in hospital - it's the staff.

Oh dear, did the thing-that-never-happens happen? A woman raped on a hospital ward was told she wasn't raped 'because it was an all women ward'. Except it wasn't and there was CCTV footage of the transwoman patient going into her cubicle to attack her.

The NHS trust denied this was possible for an entire year.