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Neurology ward visit

Posted By ignoredandgaslit

"Neurology ward visit"

About: Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital / Neurological Intervention and Imaging Service WA

(as a relative),

My spouse was recently admitted to SCGH neurology ward. Although the neurology fellow, Dr Dan was lovely, I felt the rest of the experience left a lot to be desired. I recall my spouse was persistently misgendered by both nursing and other medical staff and referred to them as the wrong gender. 

I believe the nursing staff persistently told my spouse that there was nothing wrong with them and made them feel as though they were not worthy of their care. The whole experience was horrible for them. My spouse did not feel at all cared for or respected during their stay. In my opinion, there needs to be significant changes among staff in the future; I feel their behaviour to my spouse was atrocious. 

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Responses

Response from Jodi Graham, Executive Director, Sir Charles Gairdner Osborne Park Health Care Group nearly 2 years ago
We have made a change
Jodi Graham
Executive Director,
Sir Charles Gairdner Osborne Park Health Care Group

Submitted on 2/09/2022 at 10:50 AM
Published on Care Opinion at 3:36 PM

picture of Jodi Graham

Dear ignoredandgaslit,

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. I’m sorry to hear that your spouse did not feel respected or cared for during their stay and was misgendered on multiple occasions.

Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital (SCGH) strives to be an inclusive and welcoming environment for everyone. Everyone who presents to our hospital is worthy of our care, and I’m sorry you did not have that experience. We have been working very hard to improve the care we provide to our consumers and colleagues in the LGBQTIA+ community. The WA LGBTI Health Strategy was released in 2019 and we strive to uphold the principles within this document.

We recognise that education is key to ensuring that staff are aware of the appropriate language to use and have the confidence to ask consumers about their pronouns. Recognising that it takes time to change culture and habits we are committed to continuous education of our staff; a few examples of our ongoing commitment include:

• SCGOPHCG is a registered “welcome here” organisation.

• We have established a “Pride Network” of staff with lived experience who meet monthly to ensure there are activities that are actively improving how we treat our LGBQTIA+ community.

• Last week there was a “Back to Basics- LGBQTIA+” workshop for all staff which was very well attended face-to-face and online, with the recording posted online for ongoing staff education.

• The organisation celebrated Wear It Purple day last Friday, with staff encouraged to wear purple and a gold coin donation to raise money for LGBQTIA+ youth.

• International Pronouns Day will be celebrated by staff making pronoun badges whilst they learn about the importance of pronouns and the impact of misgendering.

These are several strategies already underway aimed to improve the knowledge and understanding of our staff in this area to ensure we are caring for our patients and their loved ones in a way that is respectful and meaningful to them as an individual.

Once again, my thanks for providing feedback, and I hope that the work that we are doing will improve future interactions with our health services.

Kind regards,

Jodi Graham

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