An NHS Mental Health Specialist has deleted her Twitter account after claiming a female patient, who had been raped in a single-sex ward by a trans-identified male last year, was raped by a “woman.”
Eleanor Melvin, whose LinkedIn describes her as a Mental Health Specialist Practitioner with the Coventry and Werwickshire Partnership NHS Trust, deleted her Twitter after sparking massive outrage with her comment.
Replying to Twitter user Ermine Amies and Baroness Nicholson, Melvin wrote: “It’s horrendous that she was raped. Though, your transphobic views are wrong. The NHS were not lying, there was no male on the ward. She was raped by a woman.”
Melvin was replying to a post by Amies in which she tweeted the contents of Baroness Nicholson’s Thursday speech in the House of Lords revealing that a female patient in an unnamed NHS hospital had been raped by a male patient identifying as a woman on what was meant to be a single-sex ward.
According to Lady Nicholson, the victim was told by the hospital, which has not yet been named, that she “had not been raped” as there were no men on the ward who could have committed the crime. The hospital also told that to police, who the victim had gone to in order to file a report about her ordeal. Under UK law, the definition of rape requires a penetrating male to be the perpetrator.
The Baroness told the House of Lords that it took one year for the hospital to admit that there had been a biological male in the ward and that the rape did indeed occur, and it was only after CCTV footage was reviewed, and witnesses confirmed what had happened.
In 2010, England banned mix-sex hospital wards outside of the ICU, but a controversial 2019 guidance within the NHS titled Annexe B began to allow for men who self-identify as women to be placed on single-sex wards. According to Baroness Nicholson, Annexe B has resulted in hospital staff having to lie to concerned female patients about males being on their wards.
A review of the policy was launched in 2021, and is being carried out by self-described “trans activist and ally” Dr. Michael Brady.
Today, the Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust, where Ell Melvin works, responded to Twitter users demanding accountability, noting that an investigation has been launched.
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