I knew from reading various reports that the situation regarding sexual assaults and rapes in National Health Service (NHS) hospitals and healthcare settings was bad but this recent report published in The Sun newspaper shows just how bad things have got. Apparently there are not 33 rapes or sexual assaults happening in British hospitals every week and the number of suspects apprehended for these offences seems astonishingly small.

What is even worse is that there doesn’t seem to be much improvement in the prevention of such attacks since the Women’s Rights Network reported on this problem a few years back.

The Sun said:

“Despite hospitals being considered a safe place, where the sick, scared and vulnerable seek help in their darkest moments, damning data exclusively obtained by The Sun shows they can be a paradise for depraved beasts.

We can reveal that in the last three years, there have been 5,156 reports of rape and sexual assault in NHS and private hospitals to police, which equates to 33 monstrous attacks every single week. 

Those attacks – against patients, visitors and staff – are “the barest underestimation”, according to one expert, who tells us she also fears some victims will be denied justice due to the same prejudices that blighted Rochdale grooming gang survivors.

The true scale of sexual violence in hospitals will also be dramatically higher than The Sun’s findings, due to 21 of Britain’s 43 police forces refusing to provide data or choosing not to respond to our Freedom of Information requests.”

Although the Sun says that the figures cover private as well as NHS hospitals as the private healthcare sector in the UK is relatively small in relation to the NHS it’s likely that the vast majority of these assaults took place in NHS hospitals. I agree with the Sun in that the figures given in their report are very much likely to be a gross underestimate. All those police forces that refused to disclose information via a Freedom of Information Act request might be sitting on some pretty horrendous figures of rapes and assaults in healthcare settings that have not as yet come to light.

The comment made by The Sun that prejudices on the part of the police and hospital management will create a ‘Rochdale’ effect should horrify Britons. We could be looking at a situation where police fail to proceed with rape and sexual assault allegations in hospitals on prejudicial grounds such as the ‘wrong’ type of complainant. As with Rotherham we might also be looking at a potential problem where alleged offenders in hospitals who hail from certain communities are not looked into as closely as they should be.

The Sun quoted extensively from Professor Jo Phoenix who expressed horror at how the figures have not gone down in the period since the Women’s Rights Network carried out an investigation into sexual assaults in healthcare settings three years ago. It appears that the action against sexual assaults in hospitals that the Government had promised has not happened.

Professor Phoenix told the Sun:

“What we are seeing will be the barest underestimation of what is actually happening at hospitals.

“The NHS is one of the largest employers in Europe and a significant number of employees at hospitals are men. 

“We know that sexual violence is an overwhelmingly male issue, so why would we ever think that just because someone is a healthcare worker that they can’t be a sex offender?”

Good point there. We also know that sexual offenders are attracted to settings where they can gain access to potential victims and a hospital would clearly be one of those settings where the depraved can gain access to vulnerable people.

Going to a hospital is already a traumatic thing for Britons as in addition to the normal worries about outcomes of treatment, many of us also know just how awful the NHS can be. However having to go to hospital and knowing that the NHS has a major problem with sexual assaults and rapes on their premises makes the prospect of a hospital visit even more of a trauma.

Link

The Sun article

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/40908908/gran-hospital-sex-attacks-rochdale/