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"Disappointed and judged"

I had my first appointment at the beginning of this year. I had been in a relationship with my boyfriend for several months and went to the clinic to seek advice and contraception. Upon arrival, the receptionist was fine and I walked into the nurse's room feeling fine but I left feeling completely disrespected and offended. The first comment the nurse made when I entered the room was that they "did not like me already. I was extremely confused but it turns out the nurse was making a joke about my slim figure and how they were jealous of it. Later when I had my BMI measurements taken I mentioned my desire to increase it as it was quite low. The nurse however told me not to try and told me to maintain my BUM even though it as below the average healthy standard. When I mentioned my age and that i wanted contraception she began to tell me to abstain because apparently me and my boyfriend would not last. The nurse continued by giving anecdotes of people that they know who have gotten pregnant and split up with their partner because they were young. The nurse also asked for my ethnicity and said if I was still in that country that I would not be having sex at this age, making assumptions about my culture and telling me to follow those assumptions. When I told the nurse I was seeking advice for my first contraception the nurse was patronising and told me I knew nothing when in fact I had done a good amount of research online into the types of contraception and was seeking professional clarification. I had told the nurse that I was unsure which method between 3 options to pick. The nurse did not consider any other option than the combined pill and only told me the risks associated with them and not properly answering my questions. I had been lectured at this point for 30 minutes and wanted to quickly get out of there with the pills because of how degraded and shocked I felt. The behaviours of this nurse made me dread my next appointment. Luckily, I had a different nurse for my next appointment and this nurse was great and helpful. The actions of that one nurse has left a very bad impact on my view of the clinic.

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Responses

Response from Tri-Borough Sexual Health Service-Hammersmith & Fulham 5 years ago
Tri-Borough Sexual Health Service-Hammersmith & Fulham
Submitted on 10/08/2018 at 10:51
Published on nhs.uk at 12:06


I am very sorry to hear about this. This is not how I expect staff to behave and I’m appalled this happened. Please could you contact me directly on 0203 317 5212 or email me on pamela.akorley@nhs.net so I can investigate this thoroughly. I’m on leave from next week, returning on Tuesday 28 August, but I will follow this up when I return from leave so please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Pamela Akorley

Interim Service Manager

Barnet & 3 Borough Service (Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham, Westminster)

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