It is a time when you are at your most vulnerable. Stripped of your everyday clothes and familiar belongings, surrounded by strangers and relying on others for your every need.

Despite the best efforts of staff, a hospital visit can be an unsettling experience.

Undergoing examinations, bed baths or even using the toilet with just a flimsy curtain separating you from a room full of strangers leaves little room for dignity.

For many, the embarrassment of sharing a hospital ward with members of the opposite sex can feel like the ultimate humiliation.

Yet more and more patients are being forced to endure just that.

As revealed in Tuesday's Daily Echo, nearly half of patients at Southampton hospitals have been expected to stay on a mixed-sex ward.

A national survey completed by patients at the city's hospitals, found 49 per cent had shared a sleeping area with members of the opposite sex when first admitted to a bed or ward.

That is the sixth highest rate in England.

The figures come as no surprise to housewife Maureen Gillman who has twice found herself sharing a ward with men.

Maureen, 58, was furious to be placed on a mixed-sex ward at the Royal South Hants Hospital after being admitted for pains in her head.

"You wouldn't share your bedroom with a strange man. It's the same thing," said Maureen.

"I was pushed into the ward in a wheelchair and I was the only woman out of eight patients.

"When I asked to be moved they said I had to stay because there wasn't any room for me anywhere else."

Maureen's persistence paid off. After an hour and a half she was moved to another ward. But, she says she worries other less vocal patients may suffer in silence.

"I had to keep asking until a sister came in. I got really upset. In the end I kicked up a stink and said I would go home if I couldn't be put on an all-female ward.

"I'm lucky because I can stand up for myself but not everyone can, especially some elderly people."

Three years ago Maureen had another distressing experience when she was admitted to Southampton General to have an abscess removed from her breast.

"The nurse pulled back the curtain and there was this man staring back at me," she recalls.

"There were three or four other men on the ward and this one man kept looking and grinning at me. It made me feel uncomfortable so I called the nurse.

"She said I would have to stay because I was only going to be there for a short time but I kept asking and was moved within about half an hour.

"Mixed-sex wards are embarrassing and take away people's privacy. It's bad enough to be in a ward surrounded by strangers but it makes it worse when they are the opposite sex. It's humiliating. I think it's horrific that people are made to go into mixed wards. They should be banned completely."

Surprisingly, the advent of mixed-sex wards is not down to financial constraints.

"It's really an organisational problem," explains Gilian Gardiner, lead steward of the Royal College of Nursing at Southampton University Hospitals Trust.

Gilian believes mixed-sex wards are an unfortunate but inevitable part of modern hospital care.

"We have a certain number of beds and at certain times of the year we have more admissions," she explains.

"Hospital staff are under constant pressure to achieve targets.

"When a patient comes out of A&E they must be allocated to a ward within a certain time scale.

"Sometimes people have to have a bed that is available and that might be on a ward where there are members of the opposite sex."

However, according to Gilian, new hospital layouts mean huge shared wards with little privacy are a thing of the past.

"We have moved away from large Nightingale wards' where you would walk in and have 20 patients in two rows.

"Modern hospitals were built using a different system with wards consisting of several bays and individual cubicles.

"Theoretically you could still have a hospital with designated spaces for men and women but in practice you don't get an equal distribution of male and female patients and it becomes very difficult.

"Pressures on beds are such that it not always possible to have totally single sex wards."

But it would be unlikely, says Gilian, to find men and women in adjacent beds and even then, staff must adhere to clear guidelines to ensure patient privacy and dignity.

"There is a school of thought that men and women aren't segregated in society so why should hospitals be any different," says Gilian.

"But we understand that some people - often elderly people - find it difficult to deal with. We are all working hard to improve things."

Speaking to the Daily Echo this week, Judy Gillow, director of nursing at Southampton University Hospitals Trust, said that wherever possible, patients were cared for on single-sex wards - but if this was not possible, patient privacy and dignity was a priority.

What do you think? Have you or anyone you know been placed in a mixed-sex ward? Contact the newsdesk on 023 8042 4522, e-mail newsdesk@dailyecho.co.uk or post you comments below.