Misery of the mixed ward
Mixed wards are a terrible thing. My father, in his eighties, passed away in hospital last year and my mother, in her seventies, has been (successfully) fighting cancer. I have spent many hours in A&E, medical assessment units, general and specialist wards. My admiration for the NHS, with rare exceptions, is boundless. But I have watched, dumbstruck with the indignity of it, as the horrors of serious illness, especially for the elderly, have been multiplied by mixing men and women.
On my father’s ward, women desperately clutched hospital gowns (closed only with ties at the back) as they struggled to the toilet — the shame of not being in control of their bowels magnified by the men opposite. Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, told the Today programme that assessment units had to be mixed so that patients could be moved on quickly. But I saw men and women lying there for days. Many were unable to keep covered and harassed nurses did not always draw the curtains during treatments.
One night I saw a woman patient cowering, terrified, as a disorientated man tried to get into bed with her. It took three of us to get him back into his bed. The answer? As ever, money and political will. But no politician nor NHS bean-counter should forget that patients get better quicker if they are spared the inhumanity of mixed wards.