London ambulance treatment of possible date rape victim
This is a copy of the complaint that I sent to London ambulance service after the event that took place in the early hours of 28.09.2014, in Lewisham, London. Was suggested this page by a member of a feminist group!
To whom it may concern;
On Saturday night / Sunday morning, my friends and I found a young woman passed out in the street.
She had no bag nor any recollection of what had happened.
We called the police, and as we were waiting, the woman began to have a fit. The police arrived as she was fitting. So they called an ambulance.
The woman regained consciousness just before the ambulance got there. The woman asked me to come with her to the hospital, she was very distressed and didn't want me to leave her, so I agreed to go.
I was present in the ambulance with her when she was having her obs done. The fat hairy paramedic spoke to this woman like she was crap, literally telling her "you just drank too much".
I asked him not to speak to her like that, they knew she had been fitting and her bag was missing. The short bald one simply said "get out". The woman started crying telling them to let me stay.
I wasn't rude, nor aggressive. I have already raised a complaint with the nhs for constant racial profiling against me. I was treated as though I was sub-human in this instance too. But my main concern is that this woman could have been a victim of sexual assault.
I do not believe these paramedics are allowed to speak to this woman the way they did, and I did not feel she was in safe hands, leaving her with two male paramedics.
I have also raised this with Rape Crisis, as this is not the way women should be treated when they are in this state. ...
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I totally agree with you and I’m so sorry that you and that poor woman had to experience such unprofessional treatment, which only served to aggravate an already distressing situation. These paramedics need to realise that their job is to treat the patient and not judge them. Most of them are able to do this just fine. Unfortunately, and I have experienced this myself, though not to the serious level that you did, some of them have a God complex and believe that they are above reproach, foregetting that they are a public service, therefore they are there to serve us and not the other way round.
I believe that the NHS have a duty to take complaints such as yours extremely seriously, because behaviour such as theirs brings the whole service into disrepute and there should be consequences for that. Anything from re-training to dismissal should be available.
That should have said forgetting. Sorry, brain is working faster than my fingers and there’s no edit available!:-)
I have witnessed poor behaviour from paramedics. Well done for complaining.
I agree with you in that these two male parademics should have treated you and the woman patient with respect. Those two male paramedics’ role is to provide medical treatment to patients rather than enact women-hating behaviour.
I sincerely hope your complaint is investigated in full and those two male paramedics severely reprimanded and warned they will lose their jobs if they continue to disrespect female patients.