The question: What is wrong with mixed-sex wards? - The Guardian 15th May 2008

A new study published by the Healthcare Commission has found that last year almost 3.2m patients were admitted to mixed-sex wards, six years after our government promised to get rid of them. There are worse things than mixed-sex wards: inadequate food or water, murderous bugs, or just general filth. My piano tuner was woken in hospital by a nurse screaming because she had trodden on a cockroach. But a mixed ward, even with separate bays, can be a nasty experience. My mother wasn't too keen on it. Only feet away from her were strange men in occasionally gaping pyjamas, with tubes attached to intimate places. A bloke in a baseball cap and nightie, with his leg in plaster, lurched up and down the ward wanting to chat, and another fellow stumbled about at night, groping suspiciously in his trousers. He eventually managed to smuggle in some lager, drank it and attacked a nurse with a stick.

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