This is a rant. Just to warn everyone.

It never occurred to me before I started posting on Mothering that I'd hear of healthcare workers who are purposefully negligent in caring for their clients bodies. That recent thread about the nurses who purposefully leave the intact elderly men's glans exposed so it will "require" surgery is very disturbing. Just as bad are the healthcare workers I've seen posting on other boards who decide to have their son circumcised because they don't know how to take care of an intact man. I guess learning is out of the question for them, better to just amputate skin from their sons at birth. :angry

~Nay

That's terrible, if it is true. I worked as an orderly for many years in a nursing home. I, of course, worked in the mens ward. As I grew up in a mostly intact family, I had no phobias about intact men. A good percentage of the elderly men were intact. There were three younger men there-- motorcycle accidents in all three cases-- and all were circumcised. There was no difference really between caring for the uncut men. It's such a fallacy that intact penises are harder to care for. I mean, jeez, all you do is pop the hood up, check the oil and then put it back! Hahah. That's it. No special foreskin retracting devices, no special environmental suits to protect from all the hideous foreskin bacteria. They were no more prone to health problems "down there" than the circed men. The only difference I ever noted was that the uncut men seemed a little more friendly and at ease, and were less combative when giving care to them. None of the male orderlies I worked with seemed bothered by either cut or uncut. The female nursing staff did seem to have a few "haters", and I do recall a few snickering comments in the break room. However, one of the female RNs was married to an intact man, and I saw her showing a couple of the CNAs how to clean one, so I guess we were lucky to be educated about it at the nursing home I worked in.