Jeremy Laurance’s article on 31 January complains about the “scandal” of mixed-sex hospital wards, with 90% of all wards and 45% of psychiatric wards being single sex.

I have been an in-patient against on various psychiatric wards for the majority of the last ten years in England and Scotland (plus Barcelona where there was a compromise of single-sex floors which got together at meal times). On only two thankfully brief periods of time have I been on an all-male ward, and I found the atmosphere there far worse than on mixed-sex wards.

In all that time, I have not come across a single patient, male or female, who has complained about being on a mixed-sex ward! A woman, with whom I discussed this and has been a nurse on my current mixed-sex psychiatric ward for six years, said likewise. On the contrary, many patients have had problems with relationships and want the opportunity to rebuild their lives. If they are forcibly separated from members of the opposite sex, they will find that much harder to do. There would undoubtedly be many more suicides.

To equate mixed-sex psychiatric wards, where we have our own rooms or share single-sex dormitories within wards (at last being phased out), with mixed-sex clinical wards with just a curtain between men and women, is ridiculous.

Obviously men who have committed sexual assaults should be segregated, as should women who feel unsafe in the presence of men (perhaps because they have experienced domestic violence or rape or because they are elderly). But surely other psychiatric patients should have a right to choose between mixed-sex and single-sex wards, and to demand a transfer to a different hospital if suitable accommodation is not available where they are. 45% of wards being single sex is surely sufficient to cope with those who wish to live in such environments.

Why should mental health patients be denied a say? We are not in hospital due to having committed any crimes and many (including myself) are detained against our will.