“I can not sleep.” “Why not?” “Because you are not next to me.”
It is usually men who cross the borders, says nurse Siham Said (21). She works in rehabilitation clinics in Rotterdam and Eindhoven and has worked a lot with the elderly and people with dementia in the past. As a care worker she can cite many examples of transgressive behaviour. If possible, she tries to respond to it “with humor”. She made that decision when she started working in healthcare. “Otherwise you will be constantly upset.”
Women in all age groups are more likely to receive unwanted sexual attention at work than men. In 2021, 11 percent of female employees said they had received such attention from customers, patients, students or passengers. This is evident from the National Working Conditions Survey of TNO and Statistics Netherlands (CBS).
Of all professional groups, MBO nurses have to deal with unwanted sexual attention the most. In 2021 this was 37 percent of them. Other professional groups in care, such as specialized nurses, ‘caregivers’ and physiotherapists have relatively often similar experiences.
To satisfy
The spokesperson for the trade union CNV was well aware that sexually undesirable behavior often occurs in healthcare. “We see it every year in our surveys.” The severity of the behavior varies, recently he saw a message from a healthcare worker who wrote that a patient asked to satisfy him. “I was shocked.” He thinks the problem is more common in healthcare than in other sectors because “healthcare workers often come close to patients and often have physical contact as well.”
Nursing teacher Mathilde Bos (62): “Some healthcare workers also have to deal with a patient’s intimate areas, for example when washing. That can unintentionally arouse a patient sexually.”
Sexually undesirable behavior in healthcare is a difficult subject for several reasons. According to Bos, healthcare workers regularly deal with “confused patients”, such as people with dementia. “Confused patients often do not realize that they are exhibiting sexually unwanted behaviors,” says the CNV spokesperson. “If you know that people are confused, it is better to have comments,” says nursing teacher Bos.
Nurse Siham Said: “It matters a lot to what extent someone is aware of his or her behaviour. People with dementia are often uninhibited.” It’s about the intention. “Some older male clients are crazy about you, with no weird intentions. They give you a kiss on your hand. I think that’s something different.”
Sexually uninhibited
According to the CNV, protocols also distinguish between sexually undesirable behavior in confused patients and non-confused patients. However, those protocols do not always have the desired effect. “You especially have to create a culture in the workplace in which people stand up for each other’s safety,” says Bos. In an open team culture, you can “take a step-by-step look at how to solve sexually unwanted behavior”. For example, by sending a more experienced force to a sexually uninhibited patient. Or treat it in pairs.”
In addition, according to the CNV, there is also an important responsibility for care training. “We noticed that health care training often portrayed the work more rosy than is realistic, because there is such a large staff shortage. As a result, healthcare workers enter the field unprepared.” According to the spokesperson, “risks in the field must be discussed” in order to arrive at good solutions. “Just like you discuss aggression with the police, undesirable behavior should be discussed in healthcare.”
Several healthcare training programs pay explicit attention to unwanted sexual behavior of clients or patients. At the MBO college West, part of ROC van Amsterdam, the nine thousand healthcare students are taught ‘setting boundaries’. “We teach students how to deal with undesirable behavior in the workplace. And that they should always report it to a confidential adviser,” says Liesbeth Gamadia, head of communications. The University of Applied Sciences in Rotterdam also states that it pays ‘attention’ to safety and undesirable behavior in its care training.
Nurse Siham Said learned during her training how to deal with undesirable behaviour. “It can differ per person what you find undesirable. One person likes a pat on the shoulder, another doesn’t like it.”
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