[Jamie89]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

Oh I took your post to be meaning women can request same sex but men cannot at all.

Have never had an intimate exam done in a hospital (exception of giving birth obviously ), nor has my husband. But clearly it IS possible to request a same sex practitioner as otherwise this would not have been noted as an admin error, it would have been stated that the right to request either sex was not possible for hospital examinations.

Either way though, the nurse in this case was clearly a dick to argue with the patient claiming their gender identity meant they were actually the opposite sex when the patient said to them that they had asked for a female. So woman was fine asking for a female person to do the exam. NHS made an error but things happen I guess. HCP was very wrong to argue with patient about something patient could see with their own eyes..and to have the mistaken belief that everyone subscribes to this silly idea that physical sex is not a real thing...

We don't know that she argued about it or that there was anything wrong with her attitude tbf, what she said could have simply been a response to her gender being questioned, she might have been asked directly and her response was what she believes her gender to be (we also don't know that she believes everyone should agree with her... this is all assumptions, it's a small soundbite of what the nurse had said in the article and no actual comments from her to give her own pov or version). But considering the patient didn't want to raise a complaint about her I think it's unfair to assume she was being aggressive (the patient had no qualms about making a complaint against the hospital so I think it's fair to assume she would also have made a complaint about the nurse if she thought she'd been inappropriate).
The problem lies with whoever made the error in my view, the nurse shouldn't be demonised or shouldering the blame for any of this, she's just carrying out her job and trying to help people and was probably equally embarrassed and upset over the situation as the patient was.