I am 20 years old and I have been working as a healthcare assistant for a year now and have experienced and witnessed a lot of sexual harassment within this year.
Yesterday I was giving personal care to an elderly gentleman before he suddenly grabbed and squeezed my bum. I was mortified and in so much shock I was speechless. When i realised what just happened I said out loud to my college “omg he’s just squeezed my bum!!!!” I then reported this to the nurse in charge and she didn’t seem overly concerned I wrote the relevant documentation but no IR1 was completed.
The next day in handover when this particular patient came up I was expecting for the nurse to handover the incident from yesterday however all was said was “patient can be innaproprote”. Moving on I then looked at the board and my name was put in the same bay which meant I would be giving this patient personal care again .. and putting myself in this vulnerable position.. again. As a nurse you can’t choose your patients I treat all of my patient with the utmost respect and give the best care that I can do I shook it off and started a fresh. However, as I expected patient was still carrying on sexual inappropriate remarks as it was making me feel as though I couldn’t complete my job. In the end I expressed my concerns with giving this patient personal care to another colleague in which she said I’ll take over.
It wasn’t until I got home that night that I realised that what happened to me the day before was sexual harassment. I could not get the scene out of my head and I ended up bursting into tears with the realisation that I was sexually harassed in my own work place. I feel very disappointed with my team as I felt my allegations weren’t taken seriously and they didn’t matter. His condition made this excusable.
I want more to be done and I would like more awareness on this subject. My tears have turned into anger and frustration on this matter as this is not the first time this has happened to me it has happened a lot throughout my time working in the ward and for some reason This behaviour has become normalised.
Thanks for listening,
Hannah Wardle