Sexual Harassment In Health Care Industry Essay

INTRODUCTION

Healthcare industry is not exempted from sexual harassment, more than 50% of female nurses, physicians and students report being harassed in their workplace, sexual harassment has had a long and unfortunate history in the healthcare sector. According to Buzz Feed News, at least 3,085 employees at general medical and surgical hospitals filed claims of sexual harassment with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) between the years 1995 and 2016. Most harassment in the hospital usually stems from hierarchical order from chief physicians to resident doctors or from physician to nurses or to the medical students. Sexual harassment is both illegal and intolerable especially in institutions caring for patients

TYPES OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT According to the “Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), it is classified into two categories which are the following;

Quid pro quo: simply means to give something in exchange for something else, this in a hospital environment will translate to a person of authority (e.g. administrator), demanding sexual favors from an employee (e.g. a nurse) in return for their jobs.

Hostile Work Environment: this usually involves inappropriate sexual remarks, jokes and posters in the hospital environment, either by supervisors, coworkers or even patients and independent contractors. Many times, supervisors engage in this type of behavior as a disguised effort to force women employees out of workplace without being attributed to discrimination.