Pruscilla says that boarding schools are ‘places full of abandonment and vulnerability’
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Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Pruscilla was subjected to an intimate and inappropriate medical examination by a school doctor.
Separated from her parents and surrounded by figures in authority, she felt powerless to object or complain.
Pruscilla did not want to go to boarding school, but her parents sent her when she was 11 years old.
She says that when she arrived, she went into what she describes as ‘long-term shock’.
To make matters worse, she started her period on the first night she arrived. It was ‘pretty awful’ she says. ‘I felt desperate and nobody seemed able to help.’
As the weeks went on, Pruscilla suffered with anxiety and insomnia. She told her parents how unhappy she was when she was allowed home for weekends, but she says ‘they sent me back, again and again … it didn’t matter how much I protested I didn’t want to be there’.
Pruscilla saw the school doctor, Dr Jones, several times. She describes him as ‘having a reputation for being a slimy guy’. The school medical room was in the boys’ boarding house. She says ‘The whole set-up was wrong … it was completely the wrong place’.
On one occasion when Pruscilla went to see Dr Jones, he carried out a vaginal examination on her with his fingers. She was in her early teens at the time. She has no recollection of him explaining what he was doing, or asking for her consent to the examination.
‘One reason I feel strongly I want to talk about this is there was a “safeguard” in place’ Pruscilla says. She remembers that the boys’ matron was in the room at the time, but says she was a distance away, showed no interest in her, and did not watch what Dr Jones was doing.
She adds that she was not in a position to consent to or refuse the examination. ‘He was a man in authority … I was a young girl.’
Even as a young teenager, Pruscilla knew the way the doctor examined her was inappropriate. She describes afterwards feeling ‘dead-like numbness’.
She continues ‘It was really to my mind taking advantage of a situation that no one was going to call into question. It all looked above-board, but to me it was devastating’.
Pruscilla didn’t tell her mother what was happening at the time as their relationship had already broken down as a result of her being sent away to boarding school. ‘The trust had completely gone’ she says.
Pruscilla says the impact of her childhood experiences ‘has been huge’. She developed a hatred and mistrust of doctors. She recalls males took advantage of her during her adolescence as she didn’t feel that saying no was an option, and she has been in a number of abusive relationships.
She feels strongly that male doctors should not be permitted to perform vaginal examinations of adolescent females. She says that parents should be involved and a clear explanation should be given to the patient about the possible diagnosis and the reason for the examination.
Pruscilla thinks that boarding schools should come under closer scrutiny and be subject to the same checks as children’s homes.
‘The minute you put minors without their parents, aren’t you inviting foxes into the coop?’ she asks. ‘Boarding school is like being in care, except it looks like something good you should be grateful for.’