I did a moderately scary thing today! I had a long phone conversation with a representative from Cambridge Hospitals patient relations department, who will file a complaint based on our interview. She listened hard and took a lot of notes, and periodically paused to quote things back to me that I had said. She also sounded as if she took what I said very seriously. (Of course, that is her job. But I am not taking that for granted, because that was also the human rights officers job, when I talked to her in the hospital, and the human rights officer did not take me seriously at all.) I told the representative about the assault on me, and how the hospital staff failed to respond, and about the harassment of another female patient by the same male patient, and how the staff failed to respond to that as well. I also told her what the human rights officer said to me when I reported this assault and harassment, and how that officer attempted to minimize and deny the assault and harassment. The patient relations representative took this very seriously indeed. She will file a complaint on my behalf, and she said that this will go to the human rights officers supervisors, among others. However, I was very clear about the fact that this is not just about one dangerous patient or one bad employee, it is a systemic problem, and she seemed to understand that. I discussed some of the specific systemic failures around dealing with patient-on-patient assault, about the need for training in working with survivors of assault, in protecting patients from assault. especially by known assailants, and in treating and preventing PTSD. She listened hard. She restated my central points back to me to make it clear that she understood. I believe that she heard me. It is important to be heard. I know that any changes that come from this complaint will be tiny. Perhaps there will be a training seminar on working with survivors, or on dealing with patient-on-patient assault. The patient who assaults female patients will not be moved to an all-male ward, but he may be watched more closely. The human rights officer will not be fired, but her supervisors will probably have a talk with her, a disapproving talk. And perhaps they will listen a little more, respond a little more, to the next patient who is assaulted in front of their eyes. This is all we can do: tiny, superficial changes in response to rooted, systemic problems. But it is something. It is worth doing.
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 00:12:50 +0000
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