According to a report by The Star, only the two waiting rooms outside the Intensive Care Unit had been subjected to gender segregation. The practice began about a year ago when patients’ relatives complained, a hospital spokesman was reported as saying.
Subsequently, signs were put up labelling one room for men and the other for women. A guard told the daily that some female visitors had said they did not want to wait in the same room as men.
“But women who did not mind waiting in the same room with their male family members or relatives can do so if there are no complaints,” she was quoted as saying.
A male nurse also told The Star that large families would sometimes ignore the signs and wait in the same room.
The signs were taken down at about 4pm yesterday after a woman complained. The hospital’s public communications department told the daily that it was actually not its policy to gender-segregate its waiting rooms.
“Segregation is actually not a policy practised by the hospital. The signs have since been taken down,” a representative was reported saying.