Committee hears survivors and experts urging requirement that patients be offered chaperones during sensitive exams

House members and witnesses told the Joint Committee on Public Health that two sets of bills — H2362/S1491 (requiring providers to offer trained chaperones during sensitive exams) and H2401/S1485 (requiring explicit consent for educational pelvic exams and related protections) — are intended to give patients a simple safety option during vulnerable encounters with clinicians.

Rory McCarthy, identified in testimony as one of more than 250 survivors who allege sexual misconduct by a Massachusetts rheumatologist, described how isolated, early‑morning or late‑day appointments left patients without a chaperone and vulnerable. “This experience has completely derailed my life and my identity,” McCarthy said. “He wanted us, his prey, in the office early in the morning or into the evening because there are no chaperones to be present…