A study recently has revealed that there have been around 6,500 cases of sexual assault in UK hospitals since 2019.
UK Health Secretary Steve Barclay is set to give the go-ahead to an initiative that would see healthcare workers wear body-cameras while on duty in a move designed to counter alarming rape and sexual assault statistics in hospitals, The Telegraph reported on Monday.
Barclay is “clear that sexual violence or misconduct of any kind is unacceptable and has no place in the NHS (National Health Service),” the Telegraph quoted an unnamed government source as saying on Monday. The government is “determined to work closely with the NHS to root out this vile behavior,” the source added.
The measure looks set to be given the green light after the release of a report last week finding that there have been at least 6,500 recorded instances of rape or sexual assault in UK hospitals since 2019. Just 256 of these, or 4%, resulted in a formal charge or summons.
Heather Binning, the founder of the Women’s Rights Network (WRN) said on Monday that the data was “truly appalling” and showed that the UK’s hospitals have become “almost a market for sexual offenders” and that “the figures show that hospitals are just not safe places.”
It is anticipated that information recorded on body-cameras could help increase prosecution rates and act as a potential deterrent to future offenders.
The use of body-cameras was trialed in an Oxford hospital, with the Telegraph reporting that it was well-received by staff. Unions are also understood to be largely behind the idea, in spite of privacy concerns.
“Preventing these attacks from occurring in the first place is a priority,” said Kate Davies, the NHS director of sexual assault services commissioning.
Additional measures set to be introduced include the implementation of a violence prevention data hub and AI analysis of assault trends that may help indicate situations in which hospital staff might be at risk.
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What happened in 2019?
An elderly woman was raped by a hospital aid and haemorrhaged. Died from loss of blood. She was all cleaned up and relatives were led to believe the death was connected with some co-morbidity – as they call it – but they got a post mortem done and found she had been violently raped. God alone knows what else had been done to the woman by the male perpetrator. The hospital identified him.
Sexual assaults are apparently also common in children’s wards. This is what the England of Florence Nightingale has become. A sexual smorgasbord of ill women and children for predators.
Remedy: Separate wards for women and children and no male children under the age of twelve with absolutely no males working there and particularly not males who insist they are females. Male doctors do their rounds under the scrutiny of a matron. I would even exclude male visitors. I don’t care how much silly women winge and whine and I don’t care at all about the opinions or feelings of any man. This is the way it has to be.
Yes, yes, I know about the young woman who killed babies. Yes, she was a woman. And yes, the staff also knew she was behaving oddly. I do not believe co-workers did not know something was very very wrong, but everyone is so frightened of hurting someone’s feelings or being accused of an ‘ism’. Reinstate the death penalty. If nothing else, it had the salutory effect of cleaning out the gene pool. So you might kill the thirteenth by mistake. At least you got twelve of the worst type of human beings and that’s always a plus for society.