"Consent Withdrawn during Internal Examination"

I’m a cancer survivor, fairly young, disabled and a victim of childhood sexual assault (all medically documented).

During an internal examination with a Doctor at RWHM, I experienced a lot of pain and psychological stress and I asked the doctor to “get out of me” several times. I said to stop several times and they didn’t and kept going.

A Peter Mac nurse, was in attendance as my support person during the examination and they were the person to finally get the doctor to stop by saying “Stop. You need to stop. She withdrew her consent already”.  The doctor claimed to have not heard me the five times I said to stop, and only when the PMC nurse intervened did they listen.

Even after writing my complaint to consumer liaison and the hospital, I feel my safety concerns about this incident was never addressed. It has caused me a lot of trauma, and caused me to generally mistrust doctors with touching my body now. I have had nightmares about this doctor and I believe they are aware that is because of what they did to me during the examination and so that doctor put in a referral for psychological help to RWHM, who in turn, told me that my current gynaecological condition didn’t qualify to receive psychological care.

I can’t imagine that response to a patient who this happened to under their care.

I was referred to HCC whose suggested I follow steps I found unrealistic to be able to do as a long-term chronically ill hospital patient. 

In my experience, be very loud you need tell a doctor to “stop” during an examination! But of course the damage is already done if the doctor doesn't listen or claims to have not heard the patient.