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Rights Breached on Visit to Palmerston North Hospital on 3rd December 2018 (three times updated and slightly edited)

Peter Zohrab 2018-9

1. I was subjected to discrimination (Right 2) when I saw six posters of the White Ribbon Campaign prominently displayed on a notice-board in the lobby -- totally dominating the notice-board.

2. One single poster would already have constituted an instance of discrimination, but six posters made this into super-discrimination.

3. The White Ribbon Campaign is purely about male violence towards females, which is discriminatory in itself and incites discrimination against male victims of female violence.

4. It conveys the message to the ignorant public (including ignorant hospital staff) that male violence towards females must be either more prevalent or more serious than female violence towards males -- neither of which is true -- otherwise why would there be all this impressive propaganda which ignores female violence towards males (not to mention Lesbian violence).

5. I refer you to Professor Martin Fiebert's Annotated Bibliography of Domestic Violence Research which "examines 286 scholarly investigations: 221 empirical studies and 65 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners."

6. Some of those studies are about New Zealand, so I refer you specifically to those ones.

7. I also refer you to studies of Domestic Violence Injuries which disprove any myth that women are more seriously injured than men in Domestic Violence .

8. These posters discriminate against men who are injured by females in instances of Family Violence, because the posters clearly signpost the fact that the Hospital is a female-dominated organisation which is likely to despise or laugh at any man who presents there with injuries inflicted by his female parner.

9. Because of this sort of anti-male sexism by females, the numbers of males who present at hospitals with Family Violence injuries are likely to under-represent the real numbers of injured men.

10. Then the Feminists will -- without the slightest shadow of a doubt -- use these relatively low numbers of men presenting with such injuries at hospitals to claim that the real numbers of injured men are lower than the numbers of injured women.

11. I also refer you to studies of Lesbian Domestic Violence. If you can find some way of blaming men for Lesbian Domestic Violence, I would be very interested in seeing it!

(B) Right to be Treated with Respect,

(C) Right to Freedom from Coercion

and

(D) Right to Complain

12. After going to the Eye Clinic, I went back and had another look at the posters and headed to the Reception/Information desk to complain about them. There was a White male leaning on the left-hand side of the customer side of the desk (looking from the interior of the Hospital), who appeared to be a security guard, When he saw me approaching, he moved sideways along the desk in my direction, as if to block my access to the desk. That was an instance of coercion and bullying and an attempt to obstruct my right to complain.

13. I then altered my course so as to head straight towards him -- whereupon he saw that his bluff had been called and moved back to his original position.

14. I then resumed my original course and spoke with a young female who was behind the desk. She was perfectly friendly and helpful, but she was laughing at me with her eyes. There was clearly some joke going on which was about me and that I didn't know about. That breached my right to be treated with respect and obstructed my right to complain.

15. If the Hospital discriminates against men and someone wants to complain about that, those are both extremely serious matters. It is completely unacceptable that the above behaviour should take place!

In due course, I received the following reply from Palmerston North Hospital:

I then complained to the Health and Disability Commissioner as follows:

Dear sir/Madam,

I am writing to complain about the response which I have received from MidCentral District Health Board to my complaint to them about White Ribbon Campaign posters being in their lobby.

1. I had stated as follows:

   " These posters discriminate against men who are injured by females in instances of Family Violence, because the posters clearly signpost the fact that the Hospital is a female-dominated organisation which is likely to despise or laugh at any man who presents there with injuries inflicted by his female parner. "

On this point, MidCentral District Health Board replied as follows:

"Disclosures by both men and women are given the same empathy, support and the opportunity for further follow-up if needed or requested. Our family violence programme supports all in our population."

My complaint was not about what they do or do not do in practice. They are free to claim that they treat male and female victims (once identified) in the same way. I do not have any evidence to the contrary. However, my complaint was about the image that having one-sided posters about violence towards females (presumably by men) creates in the minds of everyone who sees them. It is bound to have a chilling effect on male victims of female domestic violence. The MidCentral District Health Board have not responded to this point.

2. The response by the MidCentral District Health Board is hypocritical, deceptive and tantamount to a blatant lie. However equal their treatment of disclosures by men and women may or may not be, they have concealed the fact (well-known to me for a long time) that Ministry of Health guidelines (https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/family-violence-assessment-intervention-guideline-jun16_0.docx) clearly state on page 53 that routine enquiry about intimate partner violence should be conducted with all females aged 16 years and older, whereas only men aged 16 years and older who present with signs and symptoms indicative of IPV (interpersonal Violence) should be questioned.

This is a double standard -- as in the case of the posters -- and we can suspect that "signs and symptoms" could be interpreted in more than one way and that an interpretation that they have another cause might be preferred to interpreting them as having been inflicted by a woman on a man. The clinician might prefer to think that they might be the result of an accident or a bar brawl, etc..

3. I am also complaining that the MidCentral District Health Board rely on irrelevant considerations (cf. Administrative Law) to justify their support of the White Ribbon Campaign. They state as follows:

   "The White Ribbon Campaign is supported in over 60 countries including New Zealand and seeks to promote healthy relationships, gender equality and a compassionate vision of masculinity."

That is all irrelevant to the issue of the posters and a lot of it is blatantly untrue. It is irrelevant how many countries this campaign happens to be supported in. According to the webpage https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-Catholic-Church-in-every-country-in-the-world there are Catholic Churches in almost every country in the World, so maybe the MidCentral District Health Board should ditch its support of the White Ribbon Campaign in favour of supporting the Catholic Church? The Catholic Church fights against violence towards unborn children.

There is no objective definition of a "healthy" relationship and it is intellectually sub-normal of the MidCentral District Health Board to pretend otherwise. If I could examine the relationships of the people in the White Ribbon Campaign, I would probably have to diagnose them as being unhealthily female-dominated and sexist.

It is the exact opposite of "gender equality" to focuss on violence against women and ignore violence against men.

It is the opposite of "compassionate" to ignore violence against men. It is brutal, sexist, vicious and evil!

Yours sincerely,

Peter Zohrab

In due course, I received the following reply:

See also:

Wellington Hospital's discrimination against men