Mind comments on the indignity of mixed sex wards

Posted Friday 9 January 2009

A report out today (9 January 2009) by the Conservative Party reveals that patients with mental health problems continue to suffer the indignity of being accommodated on mixed sex wards.

Commenting on these new findings, Mind's Chief Executive Paul Farmer said:

"Mental health wards are meant to offer care for people who will be at their lowest and most vulnerable, and treating patients in mixed-sex environments compromises their sense of privacy, dignity, and safety."

"Despite repeated commitments from the Government to abolish mixed sex wards, very little progress has been made in real terms. What looks like segregation on paper, can still be a mixed environment in practice. Patients are often separated by no more than a curtain, a flimsy partition or are forced to access bathroom facilities via opposite sex accommodation. Single sex accommodation on mental health wards should mean exactly that."

"Patients with mental health problems have the right to be treated in an environment that offers them the best chance of recovery and this cannot be achieved in a mixed sex environment. It's simply unacceptable that this situation remains."

Notes to editors

• Mind is the leading mental health charity in England and Wales. We work to create a better life for everyone with experience of mental distress. 
• For more information or interviews please contact the Mind media team on T: 020 8522 1743 M: 07850 788514 E: media@mind.org.uk ISDN line available: 020 8221 0817
• Please note that Mind is not an acronym and should be set in title case.

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