Cooties - the New Hospital Superbug

[steepholm]

I must admit I'm a bit baffled by this story, which was the lead on the news this morning. I mean, is this really the thing that people are most concerned about with the NHS? I suppose I can see that a lot of people would rather not have mixed-sex wards (I imagine a lot of them would rather have a room to themselves, in an ideal world), but separate toilets and bathrooms? Since when was that a big issue? It's not as if people are asked to stand next to each other in a communal shower, after all.

Am I missing something? The politicians and their interviewers all seem to be taking it for granted that it's a major disgrace this wasn't done years ago, rather than questioning whether it's as burning an issue as hygiene, queues, unavailable drugs, etc.

Either way, mixed-sex wards are due to be phased out by the end of the year. I wonder how long it will be before the papers report on the first person to die after being turned away from hospital despite beds being available, just because they were the wrong sex? My guess is January 2011.

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I do see that some people - and maybe more women than men - might wish not to share a ward (though as kalypso_v points out below, there are sometimes very good reasons why they might); but I still don't understand about the toilets and bathing facilities. I don't think I've ever been in a house where these were sex-segregated, so it's not as if people aren't used to using the same facilities!

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

No, but they are used to sharing facilities with people they know, and that makes a difference. I had to stay in a cheap hotel a couple of years back with shared bath and toilet facilities, and found it distinctly unpleasant to be sharing a bathroom with strangers. Sharing mixed facilities with strangers in a hospital ward, particularly when one is already stripped of one's dignity by the sheer fact of being in hospital to start with, repels me.

Admittedly, I am extremely fastidious about such things, but even so ... What a mercy I appear to be mostly fit and healthy.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

The guest house we stayed at in Blackpool last week was similar. I was a bit off put, because a) the light went off when you were in the middle of a shower (it was triggered by a movement sensor, and when in the shower I was invisible to it), and more particularly b) the toilets had no basins, just anti-bacterial gel. Actually that was a bit yuck, and I'd definitely rather have had an en suite, but I can't say it occurred to me to wonder what sex the previous occupant had been.

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

Well, it's more the meeting them on the way in and out I find unpleasant, particularly if the surroundings are a bit iffy to start with.


Mind you, as I said, I am a bit fussy, even with single-sex facilities. I prefer to avoid the facilities in the library, for example, as the bulk of the users still seem to think they're in primary school, whereas the facilities in the School of English are rather nicer.

[sheenaghpugh]

Yes, but in a house you know all the other people who are using them! Also you aren't sick and feeling you don't want folk to see you at less than your best... you might say that goes for both genders but somehow it'd seem worse to be on view to the opposite sex then...