Re: Doctor gets conditional sentence for attempting to spy on staff, Jan. 11. It would be easy to write off the doctor in the story as a rogue deviant that took advantage of his position of trust. In truth, society is regularly permitting inappropriate contact between opposite genders during medical procedures that violate common sense and are resulting in sexual assaults, mostly on females.
Our society normally segregates males from females when nudity is involved. But when dealing with patients we freely allow opposite genders to perform all manner of intimate personal exams, procedures and bathing with a belief that these caregivers separate their sexuality from their work. This is a misguided. In doing so we violate the dignity of the patient, and risk abuse.
Statistics on patient abuse by caregivers are seldom collected in Canada. In 2016 the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) newspaper did a yearlong study on sexual abuse towards patients in the U.S. Since 1999 they identified 3,100 medical professionals who were punished for sexual misconduct.
It’s estimated that only 10 per cent of sexually abused patients report incidents to the authorities. The majority suffer in silence largely due to embarrassment and shame. The AJC found that half of the doctors publicly disciplined for sexual misconduct still have active medical licences today and have opposite gender patients.
Punishment for similar crimes outside of the medical establishment would include separating the perpetrator from potential victims. Not doing so increases the risk of re-offence. Similar concerns are being voiced in Canada.
Most medical service providers are unlikely to abuse patients. On the other hand, I do believe that we are playing with fire. I personally know women who were sexually abused by a physician.
The obvious solution is to mandate, wherever possible, that caregivers provide services to their own gender. Some other jurisdictions are doing this. We almost never hear of health care providers abusing their own gender. Some may want to make this an employment equity issue for the caregiver. In response we should demand that the rights and safety of the patient are a higher priority.
Jeff St.Gelais
Saanich