Disabled people have sex. Why can’t the NHS understand that?

When the consultant conducting a smear test assumes a wheelchair user isn’t sexually active, that isn’t just an insult – it’s downright discriminatory, says James Moore

Wheelchair user Kat Watkins says the consultant conducting her smear test assumed she was not sexually active because of her disability – and that she had ‘a very odd shape’ (ITV)

As epithets go, “No sex, please – we’re British” died a death some time ago. But “no sex, please – we’re disabled”? That’s still very much alive.

Kat Watkins, a wheelchair user from Wales, has told the BBC how, during her smear test, a doctor assumed she was not sexually active because of her disability – she has osteogenesis imperfecta, which creates brittle bones. Watkins says the insult was compounded by another remark, that she had “a very odd shape”.

Even as someone who has suffered indignities at the hands of the medical profession, I found this quite the shocker. But I think I know where it comes from.

The film and TV industries fuel a narrrative that depicts a world in which the only people who get naked with each other are square-jawed blokes and perfectly slim women who could have stepped straight off the catwalk. Cellulite? Is that the name of a new action-movie baddie…?

And even those who recognise that people who don’t look like regular film stars can enjoy the occasional tumble struggle to cope with the idea of us wobbly people doing the same.

The doctor’s comments to Watkins were a brutal example of ableism, of the othering of disabled people that is still all too common. Not just in healthcare settings – it’s everywhere. But it is often at its worst in the NHS, a place that you approach for help and assistance and where staff ought to understand that people come in all shapes and sizes but are, nonetheless, all human. That I should have to spell that out seems surreal.

But we all know that while the health service loves to fly flags and indulge in self-righteous displays of virtue-signalling, its EDI officers do little of practical use for disabled people.

I’ve been on the receiving end of enough rough treatment by medical professionals to know that Watkins’s experience – or the mindset that contributed to it – is not at all unusual. It’s got to the extent that, whenever possible, I now take my wife with me on appointments . Partly, this is for witnessing purposes, but partly it is for her to put a calming hand on my arm when I’m on the verge of turning green with rage and doing a Bruce Banner.

As the election approaches, the Tories have railed against the money wasted by hospital trusts on “woke” roles – diversity tsars, inclusion appointments – but their record with disabled patients is similarly dismal. Exhibit A: work and pensions minister Mel Stride’s despicable plans to reform the Personal Independent Payment that many of us rely on.

The sad fact is that disabled people are ignored and treated with contempt by both left and right, by the diversity industry and by many of its harshest critics. The behaviour of the doctor who dehumanised and infantilised Kat Watkins in such a disgusting way is the net result of this.

Having sex is part of being human. For goodness sake, it’s why we’re all here. To look at someone and conclude that they couldn’t possibly do that is the ultimate barb. It is a new but extreme twist on the “Does she take sugar?” syndrome that’s still there every time we enter a cafe.

It’s the same with being called “buddy”, a patronising substitute for the standard “mate”, when speaking to someone you don’t know.

“Need a little help with that, buddy?”

No. Do you need a wheelchair run over your feet. Buddy?

“You’ve got a very odd shape. You mean you actually have sex?”

You’ve got very odd feet now, doc.

How does that feel? And before you point me to one of those ubiquitous signs in NHS hospitals about not abusing staff, how about putting one up in the staff canteen saying you shouldn’t abuse patients?

Watkins said she was now reluctant to approach the NHS for treatment. I understand that. I feel the same way. For disabled people – and this applies to hidden disabilities and health conditions, too – encounters with the service are becoming increasingly stressful, fraught with unnecessary complications. Too often, they leave the patient shaking with anger at the end.

We need to talk about this, shout about this. NHS bosses and clinicians need to take a long, hard look at themselves. It is utterly unacceptable. Disabled people are human, too. It is time we were treated as such.