Hospitals should be a place that ill people go to in order to receive treatment and move onto the road of recovery. When a hospital patient feels sexually threatened by nurses or doctors, it hinders the recovery process and adds emotional baggage. Sexual abuse in hospitals is a flagrant misuse of the medical profession, and should be punished immediately. Patients should be sure that they can rest safe when they are receiving care. Sadly, there are times that victims are exploited by their nurses and doctors.

In a hospital, there is a lot of exposure. Doctors need to do full body examinations, or spend time probing parts of the anatomy. In most cases, doctors and nurses have been trained to see this as part of their profession, and to complete their tasks without any sort for sexual distraction. Yet some employees are not able to make that disconnect successfully. Anyone who struggles with this should not be a nurse or doctor, and hospitals try to regulate the practice effectively. If they are not able to catch people who struggle with this sexual temptation, then the hospital may wind up with cases of abuse and exploitation. This is something that the government and protective services take very seriously, and criminals face serious charges for their crimes.

In England, a care worker at Bassetlaw hospital with the initials M.S. was recently convicted of sexual assault of three of his patients. He has since been fired from his position as a care worker at the medical center. His alleged victims, aged 64, 84, and 88, want him to be punished for his actions. The three women who claimed these sexual abuses all suffer from dementia, and live at a full-time care facility. They visited the hospital frequently for medical attention. Along with assisting in medications, M.S. was responsible for feeding, cleaning, and bathing his charges. The women say that the way that he carried out his tasks was wholly improper, and that he has been exploiting them sexually when giving them their baths. M.S. denies all charges, and says that he was doing was carrying out his job. He admits to often being clumsy and reckless in his work, but testifies that he never had a sexual thought about his patients.

In an example a little closer to home, a nurse at an Austin, Texas hospital was convicted of child sexual abuse last November. This psychiatrist is suspected of raping and abusing up to eight victims, as supported by evidence. The man was fired for the allegations. The Texas Medical Board shows that this nurse previously had an unblemished disciplinary record. Despite that, the alleged criminal was accused of sexual abuse at the children's ward in the past. He worked in the youth wing at a hospital which catered to mental patients, and was commonly caring for minors in their teenage years. The hospital, along with Child Protective Services, is searching records and completing further investigations to determine whether or not this former employee has been sexually abusing children on his wing. Two of the sexual abuse claims have been confirmed by the Department of Family and Protective Services.

If you or a family member has been the victim sexual abuse in a hospital, you should contact a medical malpractice attorney immediately. Also, contact the authorities and report the case. You will want to make sure that the police do a comprehensive search on your alleged offender, and you will probably be questioned in depth about your claims. By reporting sexual abuse in hospitals, we can further purge this heinous crime from our medical facilities, and assure that men and women who are in recovery at the hospital will be treated with the respect and dignity they deserve.