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| © Geoff Pugh |
Teresa Steele, a woman who had her surgery at The Princess Grace in central London cancelled due to her demand for same-sex care, has claimed the delay could have killed her. She was informed over email that her operation had been scrapped due to her request that only biological women be involved in her intimate care, and she later developed an abscess. The former solicitor requested after a transgender nurse entered her pre-op examination room uninvited. The hospital initially accused her of discrimination against the nurse but has since apologised for breaching Ms Steele's privacy and dignity. The abscess, which she believes may have been caused by the stress of the incident, meant that her re-scheduled operation could not be completed, leaving her in pain for months.
Ms Steele alleges that she was the victim of discrimination and suffered direct harm because The Princess Grace decided to cancel her operation but has said that she will waive any legal action if the hospital puts in place protections for other patients. She calls on the Healthcare Act (HCA), one of the UK’s largest private healthcare companies that own The Princess Grace and provides services to the NHS, to change their policies to ensure that vulnerable patients are protected based on their sex-based rights. This includes a guarantee that patients can request care from medics of the same biological sex.
The HCA has worked with the NHS for more than a decade and next year is due to open a £100 million private hospital in partnership with the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust. Ms Steele was expected to have a complicated abdominal operation at The Princess Grace on Oct 10 last year, and, in her admission forms, she said she required single-sex lavatories and bathrooms and would not discuss pronouns. On Oct 6, as she underwent her pre-op assessment, a trans nurse not involved in her care entered her private examination room. Ms Steele still believes she was “targeted” because she had expressed gender-critical views.
After receiving an email from Maxine Estop Green, the hospital’s CEO, she was informed that they did not share her beliefs and could not adhere to her requests. The hospital maintained that the nurse who “inadvertently” entered her private room would not have seen any of her pre-assessment forms or her gender-critical views. A senior HCA executive concluded that it was “extremely unfortunate” that Ms Steele discovered the cancellation in this “unacceptable way” and apologised for the understandable distress this has caused.
Ms Steele has paused any legal action and offered to waive it entirely if the HCA agrees to change its policy to recognise that sex is a protected characteristic under equality laws and to guarantee same-sex care. She believes forcing women who have not consented to have intimate care from biological males – including those who identify as women – is a breach of their human rights and subjecting them to “inhumane and degrading treatment”. She has warned the hospital that it discriminates against religious women who are not allowed to be in a state of undress around men.
