Abstract
The cost of Mental Health Review Tribunals
Highlights
Sir: Recent reports of rape, assault on and sexual harassment of women, in mixed psychiatric wards have led to discussions in the lay and medical press about the need for separate sex wards in psychiatric hospitals (Tonks, 1992; Pocock, 1993) and the mental health charity MIND has called for women to be given the choice of single sex wards (Tonks, 1992)
We report the results of a survey of the opinion of psychiatric in-patients aged 18-65 years about mixed sex wards in a new psychiatric hospital
There were 56 admis sions in the study period and 49 (87.5%) of these agreed to participate in the study
Summary
Sir: Recent reports of rape, assault on and sexual harassment of women, in mixed psychiatric wards have led to discussions in the lay and medical press about the need for separate sex wards in psychiatric hospitals (Tonks, 1992; Pocock, 1993) and the mental health charity MIND has called for women to be given the choice of single sex wards (Tonks, 1992). Ten (20.4%) patients felt strongly that they should have been in single sex wards and of these eight were female and two were male. Twenty (40.8%) patients did not expect to be admitted to a mixed ward and were surprised to find that the ward was mixed These included 12 female and eight male patients. Our study suggests that a substantial propor tion of patients admitted to mixed sex wards in our hospital would have preferred to be admitted to single sex wards. A smaller but not insignifi cant proportion felt threatened by the mixed ward environment and half the patients would have preferred single sex bathrooms and toilets. In an article in the Daily Telegraph, Pocock (1993) describes his embarrassment at being the only male patient, for a period, in a mixed ward.
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