Co-Ed Hospital Patient Rooms (Is This Ethical)?

[centurionguard]

Imagine my surprise last night when I went to visit my beloved 75 year old terminally ill mother transferred from our City Hospital to our local French Hospital because of specialized services for patients requiring kidney dialysis. She was placed in a semi-private hospital room with a male patient next to her with a privacy curtain separating them both.

Maybe I’m naive and fail to catch up with the so-called evolving times in this fast paced world.
Nevertheless; I’m left scratching my head asking myself if this is really ethical and necessary in today’s technologically sophisticated modern hospitals.

Our city hospital doesn’t embrace this policy but our French city hospital does.
After doing some research I see that this frequent hospital practice is happening in a number of Canadian Hospitals which is not altogether being received well by public scrutiny.

Even if hospitals have an ever growing shortage of hospital beds due to the increase of an aging society, I am left questioning the moral propriety of hospital policies that embrace co-ed hospital rooms for patients.

Would appreciate some feedback.

Here’s a few links: ratemds.com/social/?q=node/30109
huffingtonpost.com/jacob-m-appel/are-we-ready-for-coed-hos_b_618028.html

 

[Phemie]

While I personally wouldn’t want to share my room with a member of the opposite gender, I would still prefer that to being kept in the ER hallway, something which is happening much too frequently. The hospital has limited resources and must use them to the benefit of all. Do we keep a patient in the ER indefinitely because the only room available is a semi-private with a person of the opposite gender already occupying it?

As long as privacy is maintained, I don’t see it as unethical.

 

[jaaraf]

The wards in our hospital are separate for male and female, but in case of necessity, a male patient may be placed in the female ward if there is no other vacancy and the patient cannot afford a private room (there are no semi-private rooms in the hospital where I work).

 

[odile53]

In the US the Patients’ Bill of Rights entitles patients to share rooms only with members of the same gender. Rooms get changed and patients get moved all the time to ensure this doesn’t happen when the census is high.

I’d complain to the nursing supervisor.

 

[Phemie]

In the US the Patients’ Bill of Rights entitles patients to share rooms only with members of the same gender. Rooms get changed and patients get moved all the time to ensure this doesn’t happen when the census is high.

I’d complain to the nursing supervisor.

In the OP’s case he is dealing with a hospital where this is policy. There is no ‘Patients’ Bill of Rights" in Canada.

 

[centurionguard]

While I personally wouldn’t want to share my room with a member of the opposite gender, I would still prefer that to being kept in the ER hallway, something which is happening much too frequently. The hospital has limited resources and must use them to the benefit of all. Do we keep a patient in the ER indefinitely because the only room available is a semi-private with a person of the opposite gender already occupying it?

As long as privacy is maintained, I don’t see it as unethical.

As long as privacy is maintained, I don’t see it as unethical.

That in what you say here is the crux of the matter. Where’s the guarantee with the growing shortage of nurses to monitor patients, who can assure a patients privacy is respected? Is it common place to complacently assume that such can be regarded?

**Do we keep a patient in the ER indefinitely because the only room available is a semi-private with a person of the opposite gender already occupying it? **

I’ve been to the ER more times than I care to visit due to my own cancerous terminal health. Never once have I seen any patient taking up long term residence in an ER.

Once the immediate threat against life has been established and stabilized. Such a patient requiring further long term medical care is moved to an Acute or Non-Acute section just off the ER where a doctor will decide if the patient requires hospitalization or released.

While I personally wouldn’t want to share my room with a member of the opposite gender, I would still prefer that to being kept in the ER hallway, something which is happening much too frequently.

Personally; I never heard, seen, or experienced days on end hospitalization next to an ER. 24-36 hours at most before getting a patient room on the upper floors. And then of course there’s the occasion when no hospital beds are available and I was placed for a few weeks in a hall way on the upper floors in a hospital bed. And yes this does happen frequently. In my neck of the woods they call hospital hallway beds the Shawn Graham special after the Premier of the Province.

I still believe its wrong to place a man and woman in a long stay hospital room to recuperate. Very poor judgment if you ask me. It’s not like your on a triage field receiving medical care outside.

 

[Phemie]

That in what you say here is the crux of the matter. Where’s the guarantee with the growing shortage of nurses to monitor patients, who can assure a patients privacy is respected? Is it common place to complacently assume that such can be regarded?

I’ve been to the ER more times than I care to visit due to my own cancerous terminal health. Never once have I seen any patient taking up long term residence in an ER.

Once the immediate threat against life has been established and stabilized. Such a patient requiring further long term medical care is moved to an Acute or Non-Acute section just off the ER where a doctor will decide if the patient requires hospitalization or released.

Personally; I never heard, seen, or experienced days on end hospitalization next to an ER. 24-36 hours at most before getting a patient room on the upper floors. And then of course there’s the occasion when no hospital beds are available and I was placed for a few weeks in a hall way on the upper floors in a hospital bed. And yes this does happen frequently. In my neck of the woods they call hospital hallway beds the Shawn Graham special after the Premier of the Province.

I still believe its wrong to place a man and woman in a long stay hospital room to recuperate. Very poor judgment if you ask me. It’s not like your on a triage field receiving medical care outside.

Unfortunately, the reality is that in Canadian hospitals patients are spending longer and longer in the ER hallway while waiting for a bed somewhere. 4 & 5 days is not unusual in busy Montreal hospitals. While it may not have come to that yet in Moncton, where there are two large hospitals to serve the population, it’s not unknown elsewhere.

It’s up to the nursing staff to ensure that any procedures are done with the utmost respect for the patient’s privacy. Really though, is there anything to ensure a patient’s privacy if someone else decides to violate it? There is really nothing preventing a male patient from entering the room of a female patient, any more than there is anything preventing a male from going around the curtain shielding the bed of a female patient sharing his room. In both cases patients are as responsible for respecting the privacy of the other patients as the nursing staff is. While they may be easier to supervise, ICUs and ERs are not gender specific and privacy is maintained there with only curtains between beds.

 

[MariaTS]

I was in the ICU for 7 days once, never once was I next to someone of the same gender. I don’t care who I am next to in the hospital, I only care that I get the medical attention that I need. People who have never been sick, I mean really sick, do not understand this. Getting the treatment that you need is far more important than being next to someone of the same gender.

 

[PatriceA]

I could see in the situation the co-ed rooms would benefit married couples that are both in the hospital at the same time. My husband’s grandparents were in a car accident and both had to be hospitalized and couldn’t be in the same room together because of the hospital’s policy of same gender roommates only. I think both of them would have recovered quicker if they had been allowed to room together. They had been married for 55 years and only spent two nights apart their whole marriage until that accident.

 

[vera_dicere]

Down in little old under, we have a “patients code of rights” which talks about respect and dignity of the patient. It is only under teh most extreme circumstance of lack of space that our wards consider a co-ed room. But the patient is asked, as is the other patients in the room and the family is asked if the patient is unable to consent. If the patient/s/family refuse, we find someone else who can go in the room.

I personally don’t like it, and I would never consent to it myself. But it happens, and there’s really no way around it in this day and age, but at least we ask for the patient’s consent before hand.

Of course, with that said, where I work has a special 6 bed trauma unit on the ward, and because of the high acuity, there can be mixed gender.

 

[markbrumbaugh]

I’m sure with Obamacare, everyone will only be with the same gender IF they can get into a hospital.

Actually folks in a hospital are generally in no condition to worry about modesty. Lack of privacy and humiliation are the order of the day in every hospital I’ve visited.

 

[Newbie2]

I still believe its wrong to place a man and woman in a long stay hospital room to recuperate. Very poor judgment if you ask me.

Why do you object to this? I"m not clear. If each patient’s privacy is maintained, I don’t understand what your objection is.

 

[centurionguard]

Why do you object to this? I"m not clear. If each patient’s privacy is maintained, I don’t understand what your objection is.

Would you have any objection to your privacy Not being maintained sharing a semi-private or 4 or 6 bed ward room with patients of the opposite sex?

I reside in a relatively small medium size growing city of 120,000 plus population with over 2 million outside visitors annually. This Co-Ed hospital room policy is rather new where I live.
My objections are morally ethical in nature.

Why is it we don’t usually see shared Co-Ed University dormitories or Co-Ed religious accommodations in monasteries and convents. Ostensibly; because it’s not morally ethical.

Strange how some don’t look at any objectionable manner of propriety of respectfully seeing a man and woman convalescing a long hospital stay together in the same room.

Maybe there are some patients of the opposite sex who don’t mind this situation.
Then I say all the power to them.

But are patients who don’t care for these kind of hospital accommodations to be looked down upon or seen as difficult to get a long with if they don’t subscribe to Co-Ed hospital accommodations?

 

[Newbie2]

Would you have any objection to your privacy Not being maintained sharing a semi-private or 4 or 6 bed ward room with patients of the opposite sex?

Which are you asking about, semi-private or a 4-6 bed room? Either? Both?

I reside in a relatively small medium size growing city of 120,000 plus population with over 2 million outside visitors annually. This Co-Ed hospital room policy is rather new where I live.
My objections are morally ethical in nature.

Please elaborate. Why do you find it morally unethical for two people of opposite sex to be recovering in the same room, with (at least) visual privacy being maintained with a curtain?

Why is it we don’t usually see shared Co-Ed University dormitories or Co-Ed religious accommodations in monasteries and convents. Ostensibly; because it’s not morally ethical.

Because they may be tempted to engage in “intersex relations”. Do you think this is a significant problem with people who are sick and in a hospital bed?

Strange how some don’t look at any objectionable manner of propriety of respectfully seeing a man and woman convalescing a long hospital stay together in the same room.

Why is this strange? Is the basis of your moral objection based on tradition or the liklihood of one patient getting randy?

Maybe there are some patients of the opposite sex who don’t mind this situation.
Then I say all the power to them.

But are patients who don’t care for these kind of hospital accommodations to be looked down upon or seen as difficult to get a long with if they don’t subscribe to Co-Ed hospital accommodations?

That’s not what I’m saying in the least, if that’s what you’re charging.

Look, you’re saying such a practice is morally objectionable. Fine, I don’t necessarily disagree. But you’ve not said why you feel it is morally objectionable. Would you elaborate?

 

[centurionguard]

Newbie2:

**Look, you’re saying such a practice is morally objectionable. Fine, I don’t necessarily disagree. But you’ve not said why you feel it is morally objectionable. Would you elaborate?
**

Looking back in the last 50 to 60 years we’ve seen the Baby Boomer generation come out of its shell as being the most liberal, open-minded generation in modern history which quiet obviously has filtered into minds of subsequent generations up to present day.

Traditions, morals and modesty in comparison from the immediate time period after World-War II seriously fade in resemblance if one is to speak of morals, modesty and the like today. Has society evolved out of its archaic morals and petty modesty of yesteryear?

Can one say with assurance that Hospitals back 40,50 and 60 years ago weren’t as full of patients half a century ago? Modesty in a hospital today means nothing to medical staff.

Could one have even thought that 50 years ago that nursing staff would have ventured to place mixed-gender patients together? If not Why?

Is it because today we’ve evolved past our petty sexist differences? Really!!!

Newbie2; I mentioned;

Why is it we don’t usually see shared Co-Ed University dormitories or Co-Ed religious accommodations in monasteries and convents.

You answered;

Because they may be tempted to engage in “intersex relations”.

I would have made the same affirmation.

Do you honestly believe that Nuns, Brothers and Priests cloistered in monasteries and converts are less tempted from inter-sex relations if they were subject to Co-Ed habitation compared to mixed gender sick hospital patients with a privacy curtain between them?

No living human being is removed from sexual temptations in such instance…sick or not.

Would a Catholic Hospital re-consider Co-Ed patients in their hospital rooms?
If not Why?

From a purely secular viewpoint I do see the reason why many hospitals in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada are open to the Co-Ed gender hospital rooms due to increasing hospital bed shortage. But does the mainstay of that reasoning mean its right or out of convenience? Surely; some will see it in both respects.
You said:

Look, you’re saying such a practice is morally objectionable. Fine, I don’t necessarily disagree.

Thankfully we can both agree here.

Peace
Chris

 

[MariaTS]

Do you honestly believe that Nuns, Brothers and Priests cloistered in monasteries and converts are less tempted from inter-sex relations if they were subject to Co-Ed habitation compared to mixed gender sick hospital patients with a privacy curtain between them?

As an individual who is constantly sick, I must respond to this question. Whenever I am sick, I cannot possibly think about doing anything. Sick people don’t think about sex, they just don’t, they are usually far too sick to even think about food.

 

[lizaanne]

Hypothetical Scenario - I’m dying and need medical care.

Choices:

1 - Bed in a hallway
2 - Bed in a co-ed room
3 - Bed in a broom closet

My choice? I really don’t care. Just make sure I’m getting the care I need, and if someone sees my bare behind in the process, well too bad for them. I am willing to undergo a bit of indignity if it means I will get proper health care.

Now this is assuming that all else remains properly above board and there is no potential for sexual abuse or anything along those lines, and all reasonable attempts are made to ensure privacy (curtains closed, etc.). All things being equal, if there is no private or same gender room for me - I don’t care where they put me as long as I get the care I need.

~Liza

 

[centurionguard]

As an individual who is constantly sick, I must respond to this question. Whenever I am sick, I cannot possibly think about doing anything. Sick people don’t think about sex, they just don’t, they are usually far too sick to even think about food.

I don’t eat very much myself due to my sickness with pancreatic cancer treatments.

But I do have to admit I would feel very uneasy having to share a hospital room with the opposite sex. And not particularly out of fear. I’m Asexual so my sexual desires are with neither sex or myself. People might want to argue with my respect towards archaic traditions but that’s me I suppose. Other people can do as they wish.

Peace
Chris

 

[centurionguard]

Hypothetical Scenario - I’m dying and need medical care.

Choices:

1 - Bed in a hallway
2 - Bed in a co-ed room
3 - Bed in a broom closet

My choice? I really don’t care. Just make sure I’m getting the care I need, and if someone sees my bare behind in the process, well too bad for them. I am willing to undergo a bit of indignity if it means I will get proper health care.

Now this is assuming that all else remains properly above board and there is no potential for sexual abuse or anything along those lines, and all reasonable attempts are made to ensure privacy (curtains closed, etc.). All things being equal, if there is no private or same gender room for me - I don’t care where they put me as long as I get the care I need.

~Liza

I don’t mind the broom closet if that is all that’s left

 

[jilly4ski]

This is an interesting question. After I gave birth I had to give consent for male nurses to do my care. Not one other woman on the maternity ward had consented to have a male nurse, so my baby and I had two nurses just to ourselves (they were finishing up their clinicals). Of course this is in the US, in a not very busy hospital. There are 3 hospitals, not counting the VA, within a 10 mile radius in a ever shrinking population. I was in the one farthest from downtown which doesn’t have major trauma capabilities, ie they send the gun shot victims to a different hospital.

So I couldn’t see them being able to put another male patient (unless related) in a room if male nurses can’t even treat women without consent.