Medical professionals have broken Britain’s ultrasound guidelines

Women throughout the UK have been denied medical care due to being sexually inactive.

Originally reported by VICE, women across the UK have been informed by healthcare professionals that they are not allowed to receive an internal examination because they aren’t sexually active – going against the advice of British medical ultrasound guidelines.

Founded in 1969, the British Medical Ultrasound Society have stated a patient should still be offered a transvaginal ultrasound regardless of whether they have had penetrative sex or are currently sexually inactive.

Additionally, patients should still be offered and allowed to except an internal examination in the same way they are allowed to receive a cervical screening despite their sexual status.

The British Medical Ultrasound Society have said: ‘The concept of virginity plays no part in the clinical decision making for a transvaginal ultrasound, and the examination should be offered by the ultrasound practitioner, when clinically indicated.

‘It is, however acknowledged that health tests such as cervical screening and transvaginal ultrasounds may be more uncomfortable for patients who have not had penetrative sex, and therefore the ultrasound practitioner must be extra vigilant if they are to proceed.’

The exam consists of a probe that goes two to three inches deep inside the vagina and is often used to help doctors examine the female reproductive organs to find the cause for conditions such as pelvic pain, unexplained bleeding or cysts.

VICE, an American journalist publication that was founded in 1994, spoke to five women in the UK who have been denied these examinations.

A 30-year-old woman from Croydon told Vice she was denied the care by Croydon University hospital and said: ‘It’s 2022 for crying out loud. Women have to lie just to get their health checked, because apparently our well-being revolves around men. This is what purity culture has done to us.’

Syndromes such as PCOS, which affects a women’s ovaries, are measured through internal examinations and this condition, according to the NHS, affects around one in every 10 women in the UK.  

Photo by Jana Shnipelson