St John Ambulance has been accused of “erasing women” for referring to “people with breasts” in their CPR guidance – while still using the term “men” in the same document.
The ambulance service had hosted a website titled: “How to do CPR and use a defibrillator on a person with breasts.”
Its guidance included a subheading which read: “People with breasts are statistically less likely to receive bystander CPR than men… Let’s change that.”
St John’s advice also mentioned removing not only bras but chest binders, which are often used by transgender people to flatten the appearance of breasts.
St John Ambulance has been accused of ‘erasing women’ for referring to ‘people with breasts’ in their CPR guidance
GETTY
But now, gender-critical campaigners have accused the ancient charity of “erasing women” in their online advice about defibrillator use.
Gender critical activist Kellie-Jay Keen told MailOnline she was “disgusted but not surprised” by the terminology.
“People are understandably miffed as to why a woman would need to be erased from an association with the word ‘breasts’,” she said.
The Women’s Rights Network said St John Ambulance needed “immediate medical treatment” for developing “chronic amnesia and forgetting the word for half the population”.
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Kellie-Jay Keen said she was ‘disgusted but not surprised’ by the terminology
ST JOHN AMBULANCE
While Maya Forstater of Sex Matters added: “It beggars belief that some of the worst offenders when it comes to butchering factual, sex-based language are medical organisations.”
The backlash also spread to social media – and now, St John Ambulance has amended the title of their webpage to include “women” alongside the original phrasing.
The webpage’s title now reads: “How to do CPR and use a defibrillator on women and people with breasts.”
A spokesman for the charity said: “According to research women are less likely than men to receive lifesaving CPR in public because people are afraid to touch breasts.
“This reluctance to give CPR affects every ‘body’ with breasts and the CPR guidance on our webpages seeks to convey this important message.”
‘It beggars belief that some of the worst offenders when it comes to butchering factual, sex-based language are medical organisations,’ Sex Matters’ Maya Forstater said
PA
Following the row, the charity said they had reviewed and improved the wording “to ensure it reflects everybody St John seeks to help”.
Research has shown that women are less likely to receive CPR from bystanders than men during suspected cardiac arrests.
St John Ambulance’s own study last October highlighted that a third of Britons fear giving CPR to women due to concerns about touching breasts.
It found that a third of men worry they might be accused of “inappropriate” touching when giving chest compressions to women in public.
Meanwhile, only 13 per cent of women expressed similar concerns about providing CPR to female cardiac arrest victims.