Woman's Hour - Cosmetic surgery reviews, Speed dating, Bangladesh elections, Assisted dying & palliative care

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

Woman’s Hour investigates the cosmetic surgery clinic taking legal action when patients post unfavourable reviews. Kate Kronenbach tells reporter Melanie Abbott she was disappointed when she had an operation to remove fat from her arms after losing 10 stone, and received a solicitor’s letter when she wrote about her experience on the Trustpilot website. Action has also been taken against five others. The Free Speech Union is supporting them in their case. Clare McDonnell discusses the story with Melanie and speaks to the Union and to patient campaigner Dawn Knight. Is speed-dating making a comeback? Apathy over dating apps seems to be pushing both men and women towards the kind of speed dating that was so popular in the nineties. But is it better than online dating? And does it work? Clare is joined by writer Radhika Sanghani and relationship counsellor Suzie Hayman to discuss.Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina won a controversial fourth consecutive term in Parliamentary elections last elections last Sunday. The opposition party called it a 'sham' election, coming after mass arrests of her political opponents and refused to participate. The leader of the Opposition former PM Khaleda Zia – also female - is under house arrest. Between them the two women have dominated Bangladeshi politics since 1991. BBC News South Asian Correspondent, Samira Hussain, joins Clare McDonnell to tell us more about these leaders and the political situation in Bangladesh. Last week on Woman’s Hour we heard the candid admission by the former Labour MP and Government Minister, Dame Joan Ruddock that she was ready to end her terminally ill husband's life using a pillow in a bid to end his pain. Her husband the former MP Frank Doran had been suffering from end stage bowel cancer in 2017, and she struggled to get him pain relief medication in the hours before he died. She is now calling for a free vote in the Commons to legalise assisted dying. The public debate around the subject has been revived in recent months by leading figures such as Esther Rantzen - who revealed that she is considering travelling to a Dignitas clinic in Switzerland if her cancer worsens; and the late Dame Diana Rigg, who made a recording before her death making the case for assisted dying. But others such as Baroness Ilora Finlay, a cross bench peer in the House of Lords and a palliative end of life care expert, are cautioning against a law change. She believes improved access to care and pain relief is the answer when people are dying rather than the taking of lethal drugs. She joins Clare McDonnell to reflect on the new push for a law change.Presented by Clare McDonnell Producer: Louise Corley

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Claire Macdonald and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Thank you and welcome to Woman's Hour. Most of us look to online reviews these days to help us make choices from anything from which restaurant to choose or hotel to book. So when it comes to something as serious as cosmetic surgery and all the potential pitfalls, you would have thought sharing your experience online is pretty essential for others considering the same path. Kate Cronbar did just that after surgery to remove

excess flesh from her arms after she lost 10 stone and the procedure went badly wrong. The clinic involved is now suing her, along with four other patients who've made similar claims. We'll hear from her and her legal counsel who say laws are being wrongly used to silence criticism. Gen Z have already brought back the 90s trends of baggy jeans crop tops and baguette bags and now you can add speed dating to that list tired of dating apps and swiping right or mainly left well speed dating is apparently making a comeback does that idea fill you with dread or maybe relief no more fibbing with that online photo cut to the chase go face face. If you are currently in the dating market, let me know what you think about that.

Details on the way of how you can get in touch. Now, you may think when it comes to world leaders, men disproportionately outnumber women. And you'd be right, but not in Bangladesh, where a female prime minister has been elected in all seven parliamentary elections since 1991. Sheikh Hasina has just won a controversial fourth consecutive term. But with her female rival currently under house arrest alleging human rights abuses, has a woman brought in a de facto one party rule in Bangladesh? And last week on Woman's Hour, we heard the heartbreaking admission from former government minister Dame Joan Ruddock that she was ready to end her terminally ill husband's life using a pillow in a bid to end his pain. Now, she is calling for a free vote

in Parliament in an attempt to legalise assisted dying. Well, today we hear the other side of that argument. Baroness Elora Finlay believes improved access to care and pain relief is the answer to end-of-life care, not the taking of lethal drugs. I'd love to hear from you on all of the subjects we're covering this morning. Cosmetic surgery, speed dating, assisted dying. You can text the programme. The number is 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. We are on social media at BBC Woman's Hour. You can get in touch that way or you can send us a WhatsApp message.

This is the number you need. You can send us a voice note 03700 100 444. Really love to hear from you this morning. Now, women who posted unfavourable reviews and comments about their cosmetic surgery are facing legal action from the clinic involved. In total, five former patients, including one man, are being threatened with the courts

and an injunction has been taken out against another woman who runs Facebook support groups. Our reporter Melanie Abbott has been looking into that for us and joins us in the Woman's Hour studio. Good morning. Good morning. Tell us about the clinic we're talking about here. It's called Signature Clinic. It's got eight centres in cities all around the UK and the website says that they pride themselves on being results driven and guarantee a comprehensive treatment plan at a competitively low price. And the website features plenty of five star reviews.

I'm guessing these reviews we're talking about were not five star. No, exactly. And if you look at the website Trustpilot, 90% of the reviews there are five star. But Trustpilot has placed a note on the website saying they've discovered the company's been pressurising people to remove or edit their negative reviews. And this is what happened to Kate Cronenbeck, who I spoke to. She began by telling me why she wanted surgery to remove loose skin on her arms. considerable amount of weight um almost 10 stone and uh finally achieved the weight that i felt comfortable at well done but it did leave me with a lot of loose skin all over um and i've had operations to have the excess skin removed on my body and I just wanted my arms done to

match up with everything else. And how did the operation go? It was strange it was I've never had that amount of surgery done under a local anaesthetic. The anaesthetic seemed to numb everything okay to begin with. And then we got to a point on one arm and I felt the pain. I felt the scalpel. I felt everything. It was excruciating. I swore. I almost jumped off the table.

And I started shaking. And I didn't feel I was in a position to get up and walk away from that and leave it unfinished because the incision is from your armpit to your elbow and that's a big incision you're not going to walk out of a theatre with that open. I had concerns about my outcome within a few days of my surgery, which I did speak to the clinic about via email. They reassured me that swelling could happen, but this should all go down and I should see my final results in 12 months. So I waited 12 months and then I approached them again and said, look, I've still got all of this excess skin they offered to have me come in to review it and redo it but I'd lost faith in in the company I didn't feel I could put myself through all of that again do you mean because they told you to wait yeah because they

told me to wait you couldn't well I couldn't get through to anybody on the phone to speak to it was all done via email and um yeah I just I felt like I was being a nuisance to them so yeah so I had to wait so that's when you decided to post the review? Yes, I did request that if they could refund me part of my money, I could perhaps get it repaired somewhere else. And they point blank refused. So anyway, I went ahead and posted my review. I was given an accurate account of my experience so that other people looking for a clinic to go to

would have that balance of good and bad. What happened then once you had posted the review? Was the reaction fairly swift? Pretty much, yeah. I had an email from the clinic's solicitor requesting that I take it down or they would be serving me with court papers. Immediately I was scared and I thought oh god I didn't realize this could happen so I took my review down. I then spoke to a few other people in my situation And they encouraged me to keep my review up because it is a free speech thing.

I'm allowed to say what I believe to be my own truth. So I put it back up and then I was slammed with solicitors, letters and court papers. I felt quite intimidated. I was mentally quite taken aback. They were saying that they would take me to court and I'd have to pay their costs plus £10,000 in damages. I'm an unpaid carer to my daughter. I'm not in a position to be paying somebody off just for putting my own personal review online, I tried to reach out to the director of the clinic and the solicitor replied and he was very abrupt. His email said things like involving the police because I was being harassing towards them and that my actions would cause me to end up being bankrupt and losing

everything. What was your reaction when you received that letter? I was frightened. I was petrified, absolutely petrified. Did you think about taking down that review? I did think about taking it down, but I didn't feel that my review was really that bad to my knowledge I wasn't being slanderous I wasn't saying anything untoward I kept it short and to the point and factual to my experience there wasn't a part of you that just thought well it's simpler just to get rid of it? In myself I've got a fair sense of what's right and what's wrong and I don't feel at all like I'm in the wrong and when I feel like I'm right I will fight for it if I can. Now you are

facing further court action though? I am but I feel confident in as much as we've got the right people fighting our corner. What impact has all of this had on you? Oh I swear Ian it impacted on my mental health when it first all kicked off quite dramatically. I was in a very very dark place and as a carer I can't afford to be in that dark place I have to carry on day-to-day duties as normal but it's difficult when you've got that amount weighing you down. And how nervous are you about the court case? Oh quite nervous yeah because this could drag out for many many many months years a couple of years at least there are some people listening who might just think well it would have been so much easier just to back down oh yeah yeah it would it would have

been so much easier to have backed down why should I have to why should I be silenced if you were looking for a decent restaurant to go and eat in you'd have a look at the online reviews and if there's one or two on there that say oh you know that's not so good you would take that into account when you're making your decision now surgery is a major decision to make and you don't take that lightly that takes a lot of research I looked into a lot of clinics and that one appealed to me because there was very little bad reviews and it was close and it was affordable. People need to have that access to truthful reviews. Otherwise we cannot make informed decisions. And that's how I felt. And that's why I left it up there perhaps I

was wrong but I I stand by it do you think there is an argument that companies if they don't agree with reviews that they should be able to fight back as it were well it depends how they're fighting back. Surely there are better ways to go about this than to just throw a solicitor at the problem. What would have been a better happy with that. I would have gone away and put it towards saving up for somewhere else. And Kate is now awaiting that court case, which is due in February. So Kate, as you said at the start there, Kate now awaiting that court case. And of course, if that resonates with any of you, do tell us your experience on text 84844. What does, Mel, what does the Signature clinic say about all of this? Well, we invited signature to take part, but instead they sent us a statement saying the company has treated more than 24,000 patients

so far. And the average trust pilot rating is 4.7 or 4.8 on Google and direct feedback from clients they say demonstrates that offering is outstanding in the vast majority of cases. It goes on to say honest feedback is welcomed and the clinic always tries to resolve any issues directly via customer service in the first instance. However the statement says and I quote, we will take appropriate action when reviews are factually inaccurate or defamatory. Taking legal action is a last resort and we will always give patients the opportunity to amend comments where they are defamatory. We have a zero tolerance policy in relation to harassment of our clinical or administrative staff. So what about the solicitor who sent those letters? He said that he acted with professionalism and integrity at all

times and in line with both the law and the solicitor's regulation authority standards and regulations. So there is a health inspectorate, it's called the Care Quality Commission. Do they have anything to say? Well, we do know that the Care Quality Commission raised this issue in an inspection report that was published last December of the London Clinic of Signature, which it rated as inadequate. The CQC said that there was no information to patients about raising a concern or a complaint, and surgeons viewed feedback as a direct criticism of their work, their report said, instead of constructive feedback.

The CQC said limited medical support was offered to a patient once a negative review was posted and one patient said that they were too frightened to tell Signature they were unhappy because they were afraid of legal action. The CQC said that the staff were caring but also found dusty operating theatres, beds with unchanged linen and improper equipment to check that surgical instruments had been decontaminated properly. Signature has told us they have asked the CQC to review this rating as they believe there are inaccuracies

and say it doesn't reflect the high quality of service provided. But they say they have made significant improvements to processes and procedures, including infection control, to ensure that they comply fully with industry-acknowledged best practice. And they say suspending patient aftercare isn't standard practice due to only negative reviews, but a last resort when relationships have broken down. Melanie, thank you. I'm joined in the studio now by Bryn Harris, who is legal counsel with the campaign group The Free Speech Union and has been advising Kate and others involved. And also Dawn Knight, patient ambassador at the Safety Body, the Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners.

Welcome, both of you. Good morning. Good morning. Bryn, let's start with you. Why did the union decide to take up this case? Well, we were approached by one of the patients and we're a membership organisation and we exist to help our members when they're involved in a free speech dispute that we can help with. We were approached. It sounded like a pretty clear case of someone who

was being intimidated for exercising their legitimate right to free speech. So we did what we could to help both that patient, I think it was Mo, that patient, and then to bring the rest of them together. It's obviously a lot better if you can help them as a group, get them under single representation. That's the law firm RPC who've done a wonderful job. And we thought this is clearly what we set up to do to help and defend people who are facing a really unequal struggle. Yeah. OK. Well, the company involved, Signature, clearly think the comments were defamatory. They're bringing this case because they want to protect their reputation. Why do you think they are wrong to do that? Well, obviously, they've got a right to go to court and to have their claim heard. The point

is that the law allows limited and defined opportunities to protect your reputation. Now, in the case of a company that's bringing a claim, the claimant, the company, needs to show that these were indefensible, damaging comments that caused serious financial loss. And I think that's very important. It'll be something for the court to decide. But I think there's an immediate question. Do online reviews, are they really likely to cause serious financial loss? I mean, my sense is there'd be a lot more businesses going under if online reviews really did that. So on the face of it, we have this mismatch where you've got claims that are being pursued, we say, in a very aggressive manner, with outright threats made to the defendants.

And this is disproportionate to the legal merits in terms of the claim they could legitimately bring to the court. It just seems disproportionate. And that leads to the inference, is this not so much about defending a right that they have in law, and is it about something else, namely silencing those who are criticising them? OK, so you believe, and it's called SLAPS, isn't it? That's the acronym.

This is them using strategic legislation against public participation, which is the legislation which was brought in last year. So you're saying they're using that in the wrong way. But again, they would say we're not doing that. This dispute with Kate is about protecting our reputation. It's been calculated to cause us financial harm. Are you missing this slaps thing? Is it being used in the appropriate way or not? Well, I mean, one might say that there's no appropriate way that one can use a

slap in that involves using law for a purpose that it's not appropriate way that one can use a slap in that it involves using law for a purpose that it's not there for. It's certainly true that the Parliament has only recently taken action regarding slaps, and that's in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act. But it's important to note that that act last year was Parliament choosing to legislate against a particular type of slap. Slaps have been around for a long time. The term dates to at least 1990. And there are many uses. They can be used to silence journalists, authors, and now, as we're seeing, used to silence consumers. Now, the fact that Parliament has said we want to take action against a particular type of slap concerning economic crime, that doesn't mean far enough that there's work that remains to do both uh with parliament and the regulators and we

certainly hope they will do that work okay let's bring in dawn knight patient and master at the safety body the joint council for cosmetic practitioners uh i know you had you know a personal issue with a cosmetic surgeon but let's just talk specifically about this kind of action being taken against those who complain in this way. What experience have you heard along those lines? Well, I think we have to consider

firstly the implications to everyone leaving an online review and anyone who is seeking support from Facebook groups as well. We also need to think about how vulnerable these patients are and how they've already put their lives in the hands of a company that they've selected to have a cosmetic procedure with. Sadly, these procedures don't always go according to plan.

And I think that can often, you know, be managed by expectations, but also a significant part of that is the aftercare and how that particular patient is dealt with and supported post-surgery. So, yeah, this is a new way of people being discouraged from reaching out for support, peer support, when often they've not told their friends and family or their loved ones that they're going to go ahead with the procedure, only to be placed into what is, frankly, a disturbing and quite distressing situation for all involved. And what has changed then? Because I know NDAs were something that was used in the cosmetic surgery industry once a complaint was issued and maybe settlements were reached. But what have you noticed change on that front? Yeah, so I mean, NDAs are still widely used,

out-of-court settlements are still widely used. We are seeing an increase in NDAs creeping in where they're used as a bargaining chip for aftercare or further cosmetic procedures. And as Kate explained, you know, there are financial implications post-procedure when it goes wrong. And if you're, you're you know unwell unable to continue to work mental health stresses and anxieties PTSD often comes into the equation as well it really is a distressing situation to hear about. We know that the Care Quality Commission in this signature clinic in this we're talking about their London clinic now has said it's inadequate so they have six months. They dispute that they

get they're pushing back against that, but they do have six months before they get another visit. So that is one route that can possibly deal with this. But what other routes do you think need to happen to protect patients more? Well, the CQC have something called a Regulation 16. And part of that is a recommendation, and that's the buzzword, that every patient should have access to an external review process. independent sector for cosmetic adjudication. They offer a route for the patients to approach them when stage two of the company complaints process has broken down. It is an awful position for a patient to be in where they no longer trust the company that they elected to have surgery with. And they feel that the relationship has broken down to a point where they need support from a third party. So I've actually written to MPs to ask them to look at that in this case and the wider implications, where maybe the

external adjudication needs to be a compulsory part of the profile of all cosmetic surgery providers. And just briefly, Dawn, I know you had a procedure on your eyes at a different private clinic that went wrong. How are you bearing up these days? Yeah, I'm 11, 12 years post-surgery now. I'm still under the care of the NHS. I still have assistance with my mental health, obviously campaigning often will bring back, as this has, some memories for me. But yeah, I'm okay. I'm doing all right. Thank goodness for the NHS. Thank you so much for joining us.

Really important testimony. That's Dawn Knight. And thank you, Bryn Harris, for coming into the Woman's Hour studio as well. Good to have you on this morning. Thank you, Melanie. If you have a similar experience, we'd love to hear it. You can text us here at the Woman's Hour studio, the text number 84844.

Now, here's a question. Is speed dating having a moment? Last year in London, events platform Eventbrite listed three times as many speed dating events all over the country so why is it coming back does it work is it certainly well it is rather time efficient you can meet several people in one go but is it the right path to finding a partner joining me now our relationship counsellor and author Susie Heyman and journalist and author of 30 things I love about, Radhika Sangani. Welcome, both of you.

Thank you. Good morning. Thank you so much. Great to have you. Sorry, it's Radhika. Radhika, I do apologise. Radhika, let's start with you. You have been speed dating. How was it? I have. I've been a few times. It's interesting. The first time I went was in my early 20s and now my early 30s.

And I think back then I found it a little bit embarrassing, like a bit cringe, a bit. I don't know. It was very kind of forced. And I had fun. But I think I just found the whole thing a little bit embarrassing. And then I went again in my later 20s. And it's kind of I feel like it sort of shifted a lot and it's changed in this time and it felt a bit more normal and a bit more i don't know a bit less embarrassing a bit less kind of forced um and i there were more people i guess who i would date or would you know have been interested in um and yeah i've i've done a whole range of them actually over the years. And it's been, it's been fun. The thing, the thing that's always made it the most fun though,

I think is like going with a friend. And it's just ended up being quite a fun night out and not necessarily because, you know, we've met people we want to spend the rest of our lives with, but just because we're out meeting new people and we're not just sat on our phones at home swiping. Yes. And I always think of speed dating. You know, you see the footage and you think it looks a bit like a job interview. Then one person on one side of the desk and one on the other. But you say that you do lots of different things. It's quite a fun night out. Yeah. And I remember I did one once in Shoreditch where we didn't just, you know, move from table to table chatting.

There were also like foosball tables. So on your, you know move from table to table chatting there were also like foosball tables so on your you know three five minutes or whatever you would play whilst chatting um I once did one that was kind of a bit mad where we scaled the O2 centre in Greenwich the roof um did you find love I love it uh no not really I guess you learn a lot about a person when you're in a safety harness yeah exactly but not necessarily you know in a good way yeah um suzy have you tried it yourself i haven't tried it myself but i can remember the first time i met the man who became my best friend and partner of 49 years was over a game of cards was with a friend at a social club and we played cards and they ganged up on me and wiped

the floor with me but I yes I got to know quite a lot of him he became my dearest closest friend for a year before we actually became an item and I think this is the interesting part of it. As a counsellor, I can absolutely see the science, as it were, of why that sort of short face-to-face experience can actually allow you to learn an awful lot about the other person. And it's not your conscious mind, it's your unconscious mind. Your unconscious mind makes assessments,

does sort of click, click, tick, tick, yes, yes, no, no, very, very quickly. I mean, I think they say eight seconds is all you need to actually assess whether somebody is somebody you will like or somebody you will have red flags about. And so I can see this happening because the thing about, you know, dating apps, anything like that, you have to write down, you have to go through a tick, tick, tick, what are the things you want? What are the things that attract you? Your conscious mind doesn't always know what actually really rings your bells um and so in a face-to-face situation not necessarily talking as if you're

trying to date can do those things and can make you feel well i want to i want to see a bit more of this person i do like this person yes that that or as i said actually tell you no maybe that's as far as i want to go yeah let's put that back to Radhika your unconscious mind it's it's it's powerful isn't it all of that is going on when you see someone face to face and online apps they don't give you that do they no I love what Susie said because it's so true you know I've I've used dating apps a lot over the years and it's exhausting because you know you end up going on a date with someone you think you have things in common with but within the first two two seconds, you know, sometimes you're like, I just know I'm not attracted to you. I know that I know that I'm not into this. And actually, you know, that's what's so lovely about meeting people in person.

You instantly know whether there's a little bit of potential or nothing at all. You know, I'm not saying I meet someone and I'm like, OK, you're going to be the man of my dreams. But it's just I know if I'm interested. And I think that's what's so good about speed dating because you get to meet so many different people on one night and you just know if there's a potential or not. So yeah, it's more efficient, but it's also, it just feels a bit healthier. And I think as well, you know, what Susie was saying around, like, we think we know what we want actually like on apps, especially with the algorithms, you can get stuck just dating the same kind of person

over and over again. Whereas when you go to a speed dating event, you meet so many new people and it kind of challenges you to think, oh, I didn't think I'd want to date someone, you know, of this, whatever, who has that kind of job, that kind of, yeah, anything, you know. Yes.

Quite, yeah. Well, maybe your own kind of prejudices are challenged as well um lots of people getting in touch on this on the text karen says i met my husband at speed dating married now for 13 years it was our first ever go at speed dating and we're still madly in love at the age of 60 good for you karen and your husband suzy just to go back to you i mean it's interesting isn't it because what you're saying is face-to-face important because they've got all those visual signals. But equally, what you did was meet someone, go and do something that you like doing,

and he had a shared interest in too. So is it speed dating or is it also go and do something that you love doing and you'll meet people who love doing it too and you might have something more than that in common? Not at all. I hate cards. Okay, fair cards okay i never pay cards with him because he always won he's so good um no the interesting is we do know that um like goes for likes in other words if you look at backgrounds of people that your shared experience is often terribly important to bring you together but your tastes and what you're interested in is not necessarily the thing that does it um because a lot of couples and you know me my husband was exactly that have very different

tastes for all sorts of things but some things we may be learned oh he does this i'll do it she does this i'll do it and let's sort of find out and learn so that what you are interested in at the time you meet someone may not be what you learn to look to together but as i said it's not necessarily your hobby or interest that draws you together that that little bit of difference is actually quite important um what you as i said we're going back to what you think is the the key is not necessarily the key that unconscious i like the look of him i like the sound of him i like the smell of him i like all of those sorts of things that actually often is more important than what you think is he always said he he thought that long-legged,

blonde people from, women from Boston were his thing. Well, I'm anything but that. I can see you. You're pretty close to that. No, no, no. It's the lighting. Radhika, final word to you. Is this something you welcome?

Generation Z seems to be saying, we've had enough enough of apps we want to get back out there and meet face to face so is this a kind of social change you think let's embrace it let's get out of our houses off our phones back in the bars the clubs whatever social spaces meet face to face? Yeah, 100%. I deleted apps this year. And I've dated people in real life. And I've met people, it's possible. I met people in cafes, I met people dancing, people at yoga. And I just I just think we need to like, remember that this is possible people met like this, we can keep doing it and also just have fun. I feel like dating turned into to work. And we were just taking it all so seriously. And I think yeah, I for me, it's working also just have fun I feel like dating turned into to work and we were just taking it all so seriously and I think yeah I for me it's working to just have fun and enjoy you know doing

things I like hobbies even speed dating with friends and then that that's so much more likely to meet to lead to something than you know sitting at home getting stressed and yeah have fun basically great advice thank you so much for joining us, Radhika Sangani and Susie Heyman as well. Lots of you getting in touch on this one, on the text. I know someone who went speed dating to accompany a friend. She met a man who took them to see his brother. She and the brother have now been married over 15 years.

So you never know where speed dating may lead you. You can text the programme 84844 with your speed dating experiences. Now, let's take you to Bangladesh. A female prime minister has been elected in Bangladesh in all seven parliamentary elections since 1991. Last Sunday, Sheikh Hasina won a controversial fourth consecutive term, making five in total, whilst her rival, former Prime Minister Khalid Azia, currently under house arrest, won the remaining two.

Now, Khalid Azia's party refused to participate in the latest election, alleging human rights abuses. And there is concern that Sheikh Hasina's victory could lead to a de facto one party rule. Let's talk to Samira Hussain, the BBC South Asia correspondent has been covering the election from Bangladesh and joins me now from Delhi. Welcome Samira. Thank you very much. Well it's a really interesting history on female leadership in Bangladesh. Give us some background to this particular election. So this election happened, you know, in an environment in which there's been just a whole lot of criticism around the crackdown of democratic freedom. So as you rightly mentioned, the head of the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, or BNP, well, many of their supporters and leaders have been jailed. And that's according to human rights groups. In fact,

Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 10,000 of them were jailed just in the month of October when BNP held a big protest. So that's the environment in which these elections had taken place. But Sheikh Hasina, the current prime minister, she said that, look, I am determined to hold free and fair elections. And it was an easy win for her because there was no main opposition party. So it was kind of OK to be able to hold these free and fair elections because she was pretty much guaranteed to win. Tell us more then about Prime Minister Hasina, as you say, guaranteed to win opposition leader under house arrest. But many questions being asked about what happened in this election and many questions asked in the run up to it as well? Absolutely. I think, you know, increasingly we're seeing that Sheikh Hasina and her government have been really cracking down on any kind of political dissent or

any kind of dissent, especially against her government. So you have journalists that are reporting that they're actually self-censoring when they're writing. You have journalists that have been jailed. You have opposition members that have been put in prison or are in hiding. I've spoken to some of these people who have worked with the opposition party, with the BNP, that are actually spending all their time in hiding in the run-up to these elections because they were just so afraid. In fact, even people, I had spoken to one woman whose husband died in jail, died in prison,

and she says that he was arrested because he was a leader with the BNP party. And even though the BNP says, or rather, even though the prison official said that he probably died of natural causes, she firmly believes that he died because he was beaten so badly in prison. So that's kind of the climate that this is all happening in. And this is all sort of being documented by human rights observers and international organizations. Even the UN said that all of this happened under this extreme

climate of repression in the country. Two points then. People often say, and it might sound a bit trite, but what the world needs is more women in charge. And here's an example of a woman who has stifled any criticism, jailed her opponents. And you would think maybe it's pretty remarkable to have a country to have had women as prime minister continuously for more than 30 years. What have those women done for women in the country? I mean, it's amazing, you know, when people sort of ask me about this, about, you know, about women sort of ruling Bangladesh for so many years. But then if you sort of take a step back and then you think about South Asia as a whole,

actually in South Asia, there's been a lot of female political leaders. You have Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan. You have Indira Gandhi here in India. And then you have these two women that have been battling it out in Bangladesh. So in fact, it's interesting. It seems to me that it's more, you know, Western countries and European countries that are having more difficulty maintaining a steady flow of female world leaders and not necessarily here in South Asia. Yeah, it's a really, really interesting talking point, isn't it? What do you think will happen next then?

Because obviously we have the opposition leader, a woman, under house arrest at the moment. So what's likely to be the next move? Right. And that's a question that I put to the leadership of the BNP. You know, they've boycotted the elections for better or for worse. That's what they've decided for their party. But now what? So you have, Sheikh Hasina, that's an overwhelming majority in parliament. She doesn't seem like she's going to be giving up anytime soon.

So she definitely is going to be in power for the next five years. The international community have already condemned the elections, saying they were not free or fair. So there is this kind of effort to try and put some diplomatic pressure. But geopolitically, Bangladesh is really pretty important. And so as long as you have countries like India, that is also a country that the West really wants to be friendly with. So as long as you have India that's sort of supporting her government, I think it's really hard to see in any way in which she might sort of leave office.

So what does that mean for any kind of political opposition? Well, then that's the question. I mean, is this really a democracy if there is no opposition to her rule? Is she popular with women? I mean, it really comes down to not gender as much as it comes down to which political party you support. She is part of the Awami League. And if you are an Awami League supporter, you are definitely, you know, supporting her. And if you are part of the BNP, you are supporting Khalidazia or, you know, whoever is in charge right now. Her son is de facto the leader of the party, but he's in exile in the UK.

Thank you so much for joining us. A very important development there in the Bangladesh elections. That is Samira Hussain, the BBC South Asia correspondent. Many of you getting in touch on all kinds of issues this morning. Thank you for texting the programme.

This text there, I met a guy, we're talking about speed dating, but this, I met a guy at the electric vehicle charger a year ago and now we are married. We just started chatting and I asked him for a coffee. And speed dating, surely people only offer up their positive honeymoon period examples more than slightly false. Well, we're happy to hear the positive and the negative. You can text 84844.

Now, you may remember last week on Woman's Hour, we had a huge response to an item we covered on Friday. I thought I'd draw your attention to it just in case you missed it. It's the hot topic of towels and how often you need to wash them. A new survey of more than 2,000 UK residents found that almost one in 10 only wash their towels twice a year. In fact, 5% of men have omitted washing towels just once a year compared to 1% of women. I spoke to Professor Sally Bloomfield from the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene about this, and she didn't hold back in her advice.

I'm not being hysterical here. It is one of the things that should be part of our daily routine. Towels are coming into contact with our body all the time, so we can carry Staphylococcus aureus on our skin. It can cause skin infections. Traces of poo from our bowel could have E. coli in them and can cause urinary tract infections. Yeasts on our skin can cause thrush. Fungi on our bowel could have E. coli in them and can cause urinary tract infections. Yeasts on our skin can cause thrush. Fungi on our feet can cause athlean's foot. So yes, they can carry all sorts of harmful organisms and move them from one person to another in our homes. Goodness me. How regularly and at what temperature? I think it's about having a routine. So once a you know get up on a Sunday morning and bung them in the washing machine because if you don't have a

routine you'll put it off and you won't do it. When it comes to things that are in contact with your body then you really should be washing either at 60 degrees or at 40 degrees with a bleach based powder product so either a tablet or a powder. Would you advocate not sharing towels as well? Have your own towels? Oh, absolutely. That's the worst possible thing. Well, because they're at their maximum viability, aren't they? So it's very important that everybody in the house has their own towel, their own bath towel and their own face cloth if they have one

and their own toothbrush because that's a really great way to share jokes. You're looking awfully scared. No. Yes, and I was for the entire weekend when I spent it putting my family's towels through the washer on an extremely hot wash. You can keep the debate going online and you can hear the whole discussion

if you go to BBC Sounds and search for Woman's Hour on the 5th of January. If you want to comment on that, you can as well. We love getting your texts in. Now, last week on Woman's Hour, we heard the candid admission by the former Labour MP and government minister Dame Joan Ruddock that she was ready to end her terminally ill husband's life using a pillow in a bid to end his pain. Her husband, the former MP Frank Doran, had been suffering from end-stage bowel cancer in 2017 and she struggled to get him pain relief medication in the hours before he died. Here's a clip of that interview.

I knew my husband wanted help to die. We'd always talked about it but he hadn't given me precise consent because he couldn't any longer speak to me and I think he was obviously terribly worried about the consequences for me the pain was going to be under control they gave him an injection in addition to the constant morphine and I asked how long will this last because by this time he was groaning in agony. And they said it would last for five hours. And indeed, he went well for the first few hours. I said, what time will you come back? Because this is going to be one in the morning.

They said, oh, no, we go off duty at 10. I then called the out of hours doctor service. It wasn't the sort of thing they normally did. I was able to give them the name of the drug that was used for the injections. Ultimately, after I said to them, either you come or I will end his life, I didn't know what the consequences are, but I will do it. And eventually they came. I want to see it possible to have a system which is

now operating in quite a number of countries across the world, starting with Oregon in the US, but now in European countries as well, whereby a doctor or maybe two doctors have to make a decision that somebody is, you know know fully in their right mind and they know what they want to do and that their life is going to end anyway at that point then there could be a choice and a means of medically supervised means of ending the life. The all-party parliamentary group for dying well stands against the legalization of assisted dying instead says we should promote access to excellent care at the end of life huge strides have been made in palliative care and also the chair of that committee danny kruger mp um said on x recently that all experience shows legalizing assisted dying is dangerous for the most vulnerable there

has to be great supervision in this. There have to be very tight laws. People have to be in the right, you know, have the right mental ability to make a decision. And indeed, you know, the decision is tested by experts. So I think the safeguards are there. And if we're absolutely honest, there is nothing in this world which is 100% safe. There are risks in everything. And it would be wrong to say there is no risk, but I think the risk is very, very small indeed.

Dame Joan Ruddock there. She's now calling for a free vote in the Commons to legalise assisted dying. The public debate around the subject has been revived in recent months by leading figures such as Esther Ranson, who revealed that she is considering travelling to a Dignitas clinic in Switzerland if her cancer worsens. And of course, the late Dame Diana Rigg, who made a recording before her death, making the case for assisted dying. But others, such as Baroness Elora Finlay, a crossbench peer in the House of Lords and a palliative end-of-life care expert, is cautioning against a law change. She's also chair of the all-party parliamentary group on dying well.

She believes improved access to care and pain relief is the answer to end-of-life care, rather than taking lethal drugs. Baroness Finlay joins me now. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you so much for asking me. So as an advocate of maintaining the status quo in terms of the law, what is your reaction to what you've just heard from Dame Joan Ruddott? Can I just say it's not the status quo. What we heard from Dame Joan is completely unacceptable. Nobody should be left in pain. Nobody should have the nurses walk out and not say, what are we going to do to provide pain relief overnight? In Wales, we've been trying to tackle this on a national basis. And we've been teaching relatives, when we see somebody who's

very near the end of life, in terms of the medication that they can give as breakthrough medication and how to give it with a community drug chart there this has been going since pre-covid and then during covid it became a protocol because it was so urgent and it's been quite safe and we've also trained up paramedics from the ambulance service who can come out and who can administer medication and who can alter doses as well as needed because nobody but nobody should be left in that situation. But for her husband, from his point of view,

the pain was unimaginable. He was at the end of his life and and dignity in dying say this of course who support assisted uh death euthanasia say some people are beyond the reach of even the best palliative care when it gets to that stage what do you say to those people when you're a clinician looking after somebody and you're not getting on top of their distress, then you need to ask for help from somebody else. Nobody should be so arrogant to think that they can just do it on their own. They need to seek help, possibly from an anaesthetic colleague, possibly from someone in psychiatry, from other colleagues to come in. I'd have to say from the Cardiff end, we've been completely integrated in the

cancer centre. We're seeing patients during their oncology treatments. And now what my colleagues are doing is establishing a dashboard across the whole of Wales to identify deficits where patients themselves can enter how they feel. And if there is an area where care looks as if it's really not as good as it should be, then we can go in and do something about it. This is about continuous improvement. Christopher's and the Cicely Saunders Institute have set up an impact centre. They're just developing it now to make sure that people can access the best advice as to what to do, when to do it. So a specific question on what's going on in Wales then. You're talking about the patient themselves and friends or relatives actually administering pain relief when they are at end of life. Have there been any situations on that pilot where it's gone wrong? No, there haven't been. No, there haven't been. But there have been many situations

where people have been relieved. Now, if you think about it, we teach parents to give children insulin, which is potentially very dangerous. Giving people pain relief when you know the dose that they need is not dangerous. The aim is to get on top of the pain and to empower families to know what to do if the unexpected happens is really important because it puts them in control and it gives them a choice in the care that they're getting. So of the people on that particular pilot, did all of them die at home? Are many of them still alive? What are the statistics? What's the breakdown? Well, this goes right back to 2018. So, I mean, they have died. Right. But we were monitoring really carefully for problems and

since then since the rollout there have not been problems it's been safe because the clinical specialist team are assessing the patient working out what they would need just in case and making sure that it's there and they're working with the family. The other thing that we're doing is a preparedness project. So before somebody's discharged home, the family are taught not just about the medication, but how to help them get up from a chair, how to help them move, how to help them get to the toilet. So these scary things that we hear about just are avoided. themselves we we had that interview with dame uh diana rigg who said um this any palliative nurse will tell you in the end patients often starve themselves as a means to an end the body becomes weaker the organs shut down it's not that they want to die that way it's how they take control

um and that was her experience she said she lost control of her bowels her daughter had a in the shower every day um and in many ways brought them closer. But she said it was an undignified way to die and she didn't want to die in that way. Why put people through that? Why take that choice away from them? I would say that nobody should be left in that situation. If you've got a situation where you've got such terrible diarrhoea that that's going on, then what are the clinicians doing about it? What if they can't do anything about it? Well, I can't comment on her individual...

But the general deterioration on the body, not individual cases. This is what we're talking about. People having the right to say, I've had enough. Right. It's really interesting to see. Firstly, in Denmark, their ethics council looked at Oregon and the Netherlands and looked at the experience with a view to possibly changing the law. The 17 members of the council, which was a balanced committee, came out with the conclusion that it is too dangerous to change the law. As a legislator, we have to make sure that the law is safe for everybody. Sadly, in this country,

we have the Liverpool Care Pathway. It was very well thought out. It was very carefully intentioned. The problem was when it was rolled out that it didn't work because it got abused. We've had Shipman. I really fear that actually, if the law had been changed, shipment would never have been detected. But many people listening to this will say, you know, listening to the pilot you've done in Wales. Yes.

Is that not open to abuse? I mean, you say nothing happened there, but with less scrupulous people looking after those people, with access to those drugs, are you not open to the same kind of risks? No, because the situation is monitored, the drugs are monitored, the medication given is at the dose that that patient needs. And what we do know is pain and distress are really powerful stimulants.

And when somebody is comfortable and has pain relief, they can let go of life and they do they just let go of life and they and they die because they don't have this drive from pain or breathlessness or other distressing symptoms i'm going to read you a couple of texts lots of people getting in touch and we thank them for that um i'm 100 years old and in favor of a free decision and i would definitely wish to end my life in the case of a terminal illness or when my life becomes, in my own assessment, unbearable. I do not want the pain and the indignity

of being sent to die away from my loved ones and I would want to spare them the pain, inconvenience and expense and the uncertainty waiting for me to die. I'm not religious. I refuse that religious people decide what happens to my soul. What do you say to that person? This has got nothing to do with religion. But what about their autonomy, their decision? Okay, certainly that if the country, if the

nation wants to have a suicide service, then that is up to the nation and the politicians to set it up. But the evidence from Oregon and from the Netherlands and certainly from Canada is that by having this as part of clinical care, making ending patients' lives a specific treatment is the most dangerous thing you can do. Canada was told when they started to change the law that it would be really safe, that it wouldn't expand as it had in other countries. And lo and behold, it's expanded more rapidly than anywhere else. And now patients being killed really with lethal drugs is the fifth cause of death.

Okay, but again, dignity in dying, say, we're now closer than ever to a change in the law. And mounting evidence from countries like Australia New Zealand several US states has exposed opponents fear-mongering as unfounded I have to put that back to you very briefly in 10 seconds what would you say we're not fear-mongering at all and Australia and New Zealand are already beginning to find problems even though they thought their legislation was tighter. It is not safe. It is just too dangerous.

Baroness Elora Finlay, thank you so much for coming into Woman's Hour. We really appreciate it and thank you for all your comments on this today. Tomorrow we'll be discussing the groundbreaking new Radio 4 series, Child, which tells the story of a child from conception through to its first birthday.

Join us then. That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Will you please welcome the 2023 BBC Reith Lecturer, Professor Ben Ansell. I don't think anybody expects to be asked to do the Reith Lectures. So it's an enormous honour, but it's an enormous responsibility. Hello, I'm Anita Arnand. In this year's BBC Radio 4 Wreath Lectures, Professor Ben Ansell explores our democratic future and what we must do to protect it.

Democracy is our legacy from past generations and it's an obligation of ours to secure for future generations. It's up to us. That's the 2023 Reef Lectures. Listen on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake.

No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.