Mixed sex wards surprise
Vulnerable female patients have been sexually “exposed” on a mixed gender ward deemed not “fit for purpose”, the NHS watchdog has warned.
The Care Quality Commission found that sexual incidents had occured at Hill Crest, a 25-bed mixed gender mental health unit in Redditch, as male and female were being put at risk.
It found male patients are able to walk into female bathrooms and bedrooms, leading to risks of sexual assault and relationships. It found that sexual incidents had taken on the unit because of the risks.
Duh. Are people really having to re-learn what they’ve known since puberty? Or are they just pretending?
The rate of assaults on mixed sex wards is significantly higher than on single-sex wards, data has shown.
You don’t say! What a surprise.
Vicki Nash, head of Policy, Campaigns and Public Affairs for charity Mind said: “The fact that sexual incidents occurred on a mental health ward is abhorrent. Mental health hospitals are a place where people have the right to feel safe, and should never be put at risk of any harm, including traumatising sexual assault. We expect Worcestershire Health and Care Foundation Trust to take immediate action to address these risks and ensure people are kept safe.
“Mixed-sex NHS accommodation has been expected to be eliminated, except where it is in the best interests of the patient, for over a decade.”
Which patient? Some male patients might consider it in their best interests, but it’s hard to see how women would.
It’s interesting that they say both male and female patients are being put at risk, but their only examples are women being put at risk, and men doing the putting at risk bit.
Men are being put at risk by being put in a position where they put women at risk.
It’s all about the men!
And yet I can already tell you what the rebuttal from the average TRA will be: “but abuse will still exist because inmates can be abusers and guards will still have power”, completely ignoring the concept of harm reduction. And that’s if they look at the topic at all.
Holms: Most ironic is that many of those who would make such an argument understand the problem when someone says that gun control is futile because criminals still get guns.
Probably some of the same people who think “We’ve been using women’s toilets for years!” is a winning argument.
Holms, don’t forget the classic “women are more likely to be assaulted in their homes, by someone they know, therefore….”
There’s a multiple choice with this one. We can either have:
“so we might as well just let men into women’s wards, since assault is inevitable anyway” or
“so we should ban men and women living together entirely.”
I’ve seen the latter used many times apparently without irony.