Hospital challenges facial disfigurement prejudice (From Echo)

Hospital challenges facial disfigurement prejudice

6:00am Thursday 22nd October 2009 in

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IMAGINE having a scar or skin graft on your face after a terrible accident. How confident would you be about going out and meeting people, applying for jobs and talking to friends and neighbours?

For most people, the constant worry about people’s reaction to facial disfigurement would be at the forefront of their minds.

Some have been stared at, others have had cruel remarks made about their condition. However, Southend.nhs.uk/" target="_blank">Southend Hospital is now at the forefront of a campaign to challenge this type of behaviour and tackle prejudices and discrimination in the community.

Last year, the hospital was the first in the country to sign up to the Face Equality campaign, run by facial disfigurement charity Changing Faces, to take a leading role in tackling any stigma surrounding people with facial disfigurements.

As a result, a programme of awareness training has now been launched for hospital staff to improve their knowledge about the causes and effects of disfiguring conditions.

Amit Popat, equality and diversity manager at the hospital, said: “Staff obviously come across facial disfigurement because they are treating patients.

“The key thing about the partnership is to get everyone at the hospital to support the Face Equality campaign, whether that is just talking to their family or friends or within their work role. We are hoping for a domino effect.

“We want our staff to take this out into society.”

He added the campaign was just one part of the hospital’s commitment to diversity and urged others in the public sector to back the Face Equality campaign in a similar way.

Changing Faces was founded in 1992 by James Partridge, from London, after he was injured in a car fire aged just 18.

The charity, which works to tackle prejudice and discrimination surrounding people with facial disfigurement, offers counselling, advice and information, workshops, activity days, and training for teachers.

The charity uses the word disfigurement to describe the effects of a mark, rash, scar or skin graft on someone’s skin, or an asymmetry or paralysis to their face or body.

Disfigurements can be caused by medical conditions either from birth or which later develop, or can be caused by accidents or illnesses such as cancer.

The charity is delighted to be working with Southend Hospital on the initiative.

Henrietta Spalding, the charity’s head of professional development, said: “What we are trying to do is improve patient care and ensure equal treatment for people with disfigurements, whether that’s the patient themselves or a family member.

“Often people with facial disfigurements experience a whole range of assumptions or prejudices about how they look. Their quality of life, their prospects, their sociability can all be affected. If people are making assumptions about them, it can affect their whole lives.”

Ms Spalding, who has a facial paralysis condition called Moebius syndrome, feels the partnership with the hospital will bring benefits to patients both during treatment and in their day-to-day lives.

She said: “It’s very exciting to be working with Southend Hospital.

“The experience of their patients really matters to them, and they are ensuring patients get the best care possible, while also ensuring all staff will be disfigurement confident, and that will ultimately make a huge contribution to the rehabilitation and recovery of patients.”