Only biological women should be treated on female wards, South Ribble nurse says
A South Ribble nurse has said treating trans women on the same hospital wards as biologically female patients puts women’s rights “under serious threat”.
The comments were made during an election hustings debate in which candidates contesting the South Ribble seat at the general election were quizzed over the issue of single-sex spaces in NHS facilities.
The nurse – who said she had worked in the health service for 30 years – asked: “Do you think it’s right for a biological male to be on the same ward [and] in the same bay as a woman?”
In a later contribution when she pressed the would-be MPs over their “ideological” position on the matter, the nurse added that she did not believe such a situation was “correct”.
Liberal Democrat candidate Ange Turner responded: “No, I don’t think it’s right. We have to look at the cause – and it’s probably the…underfunding of the NHS, because you can also have women and men in the corridor.
“Our NHS will always deal with the issues that people come in with, but our hospitals don’t have the capacity – or are not modern enough after they’ve been crumbling – to properly accommodate proper areas for women and for men,” Ms. Turner explained.
Andy Hunter, standing for Reform UK, said: “I don’t think you should have them [mixed wards] either.”
For the Conservatives, Katherine Fletcher, who is fighting to retain the seat she has represented since 2019, added: “The problem is you’ve got to change the law to allow for that…protection to be put in place.” She accused the Labour Party of being “all over the place on this one”.
In response, Labour candidate Paul Foster said: “I don’t believe in mixed wards.”
Stephani Mok, who is standing for the Green Party in South Ribble at the general election, was unable to make the hustings, which was held at Penwortham Golf Club and staged by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Lancashire Post, Lancashire Lead and Blog Preston.
At a national level, the Conservatives announced plans back in March to update the NHS constitution to ensure transgender patients are treated in single rooms when in hospital.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said in a BBC debate with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday that he considered it “very important that we protect female-only spaces”.