Sexual Assault as a result of the corrupted Healthcare system

How do victim of sexual abuse case received/served through healthcare system?

To answer this question, we must first clarify the definition of corruption and healthcare system; By Cambridge.com dictionary,

Corruption: illegal, bad, or dishonest behavior, especially by people in positions of power;

A Healthcare system: the method by which healthcare is financed, organized, and delivered to a population;

Healthcare: the activity or business of providing medical services:

What happens when corruption meets healthcare system?

Basel, Switzerland. 2020, May 20. Wednesday. M’aidez.

I was doing my PhD from February 2020 in the Physics department. The second day of my arrival I fell off the stairs at workplace, broke my ligament, and had to do regular checks at the doctors.

After three months I still had severe pain in my ankle. One day I went off work and walked-in to see a General Practitioner. After some 30 minutes a doctor called my name. He greeted me, shook my hand, and led me to a cabinet to start examining my leg.

He closed the door — — I noticed the cabinet was enclosed with huge white walls, no nurse around but us — — asked what happened to my leg, and touched and laid his hand on my ankle while I was consulted. I felt he was caressing my ankle, and he moaned. Freaked out, I cleared my throat and thanked him, walked out in chaos. I was not sure what had just happened.

I felt I was sexually harassed by the medical doctor. After several calls with my friends, they all agreed that ‘yes, you were sexually harassed by the medical doctor.’

That night I had a nightmare that I was raped again by my classmate.

The next day I told my professor, who concluded’ it was just a cultural shock. You are from Taiwan, and this is Europe. People’s behaviors are different. Just take some rest from the cultural shock.’

I took a week off to recover from my panic attacks, and tried to sort it out how to appeal. If I had the same experience, very likely I weren’t the only one. I asked around if there’d be governmental bureau in charge of this issue. My Swiss friends admitted that sexual harassment by medical doctors was not uncommon in Switzerland. A pharmacist friend provided me two organizations that might be of help to call anonymously: www.medges.ch and Opfer-Hilfe.ch.

Medges.ch is allegedly the professional association of doctors working or living in the canton of Basel-Stadt. It claims on its website:

It is their task to strengthen the position of their members in their professional environment and to promote and support them in the exercise of their profession. For this purpose, MedGes provides the following services in particular:

PATIENT CONTACT AND ADVICE CENTER OF BOTH BASELS (PABS)

Do you or your loved ones feel emotionally or sexually abused while being treated by a doctor?

You can speak to specialists and get advice on Tel. 061 560 15 50 (24-hour hotline).
The PABS doctors will advise you if you feel abused by your treating doctor in your dependent relationship.

I called the medges’ hotline, the receptionist first questioned me with hostile,

‘How do I know if you are not asking money from the doctor?’

Speechless for a while, I said, ‘ If ever this thing happens to your mother, daughters, sisters, friends, would you even say that?’ On the other end of the line was a long silence, she said, almost shouted, that ‘You have to report your name, passport number, birthday, phone number, address……..’ Before she finished her line, I hung up the phone.

This hotline was a prop that the medical doctors cared. A dead end.

So I called the other organization, Opfer-Hilfe.ch. I was very well-received with a social worker, and after two hours of conversation, we came to the conclusion that this was impossible in Switzerland to appeal the doctor — — I cannot be anonymous and appeal for the doctor at the same time. The only thing I could do was to submit a file that they kept in file for now. Only if there are other victims reporting the same doctor will the case be investigated further. Although I had no idea what ‘further investigation’ meant.

After two years, this experience still felt so surreal to me. And very very uncomfortable — — — how come we are in 2022 and we are still talking about gender equality in Switzerland?

And a friend suggested that I do a follow-up experiment — — call the hotline again, asking the same questions, and see how they react.

That’d be the next chapter.