My post on the person suing NHS was taken down

Not RTFT sorry, but this quote stood out to me.

“I doubt that the people who run the trusts or even NHS England take the time to sit and listen to them, even meet a trans person.”

Seems to me that the NHS has all but erased women, our access to single sex spaces within the NHS (hospital wards, changing rooms and loos, both staff and patients spring to mind) and language relating to women (chest feeders/birth parent/cervix haver yada yada) in order to accommodate the vocal trans women community. Not quite sure what else they want.
Maybe there should be a law that gender reassignment surgery should be the top priority of the NHS, over everything else? Just for trans women mind you. They’re the ones who really matter after all.
I might suggest it to Keir Starmer. He could run it as a campaign on the side of busses. It has worked in the past. 🙄🤯

With the benefit of the hindsight of knowing how some readers interpreted point 3 of my earlier post, I would now choose different words. Regarding my intention, please be assured that there was no intention to trivialise pregnancy or to imply any disrespect for women’s lives or health.

One of the most medically risky times for a person in HER lifetime!

The NHS provides healthcare services to people for a variety of conditions that are not considered to be critical or immediately life threatening or mental health issues. Take for example care during pregnancy.

Wow I actually somehow missed this. This is shocking - so ignorant of women’s bodies during pregnancy and the unborn child’s needs - so misogynistic. That pregnancy is even mentioned as not being worthy of medical care as if this is just hand holding or something, feels like a real kick to women who do get pregnant. One of the most medically risky times for a person in their lifetime!

Why would people describe surgery that helps someone be able to have sex and sexual relationships and be intimate with another person as “cosmetic’ or ‘aesthetic’?

I am increasingly despairing at the lack of truth spoken about the actual success rate and likely complications from all of these surgeries.

That is shocking @allmywhat - misogyny at its finest.

The NHS provides healthcare services to people for a variety of conditions that are not considered to be critical or immediately life threatening or mental health issues. Take for example care during pregnancy.

Just highlighting this piece of a longer comment from a pro-trans poster, as the astonishing level of misogyny and blatant disrespect for women's lives and health deserves sunlight.

Sickening entitlement.

Yup. Speaks for itself beautifully. The complainant should get a job in PR for an (lgb)T charity - think they’d do a stellar job.

I wonder whether suing the NHS over this might have a knock-on effect of putting people off working in GIDS services?

Must be a hard enough service to staff at the moment anyway given the lack of robust evidence over treatment pathways.

I don't have time for people who can't be arsed to read the thread, plop and then disappear.

Surely suing the NHS makes no sense in this instance. It will cost the NHS hundreds of thousands to defend and will therefore deprive someone in urgent need. Haven't RTFT so hopefully someone has already pointed this out

@Platinum78 of course you are debating - that is the whole point of a thread, to put opinions out there and listen to others, not dictate to others.

I’ve worked in the NHS for many years and there are constant discussions about treatment and care, what ‘conditions’ are eligible or not. It’s very important and it evolves constantly. Especially in the case of people wanting cosmetic or medical treatment for things which are not medically necessary for their physical health or for a mental health condition such as bipolar.

Women who have had breast cancer, for example, are sometimes offered breast reconstruction. People with burns, or disfigurement are usually given options for surgery also, as it is generally accepted that this impacts on quality of life. The finances are not finite so there is also a cost / benefit analysis. This is true even of life saving drugs.

With body changes that are not necessary for medical health, this is a tricky area. As I’ve said before, if you’d bothered to read my post (which I hope so as I have given you the respect of reading yours) - there is evidence of potential harms. These cannot be from pressure groups, lobbying or surveys. Medical treatment must be based on good research on benefits / harms. That is how different ‘conditions’ are weighed up, and this will also impact on waiting times. A condition which needs urgent care should always be prioritised.

All of these must be weighed up. I’m afraid I found your post to have weighed this up already in your own mind, based on assumptions. It reads like you have determined that a trans persons need for medical intervention is rather urgent, is medically necessary within a certain time frame and has clear evidence of benefit / no harm. I don’t think that is the case at present, and the health condition harms / benefits compared to other conditions harms / benefits are absolutely to be taken into account.

hamtonn

I know patients who had mental health issues because certain parts of their body were not as they felt they should be
Breastfeeding ruined my breasts. They’re two massively different sizes. I find it very upsetting, have cried and told DH I’m going to kill myself because I can’t live with this deformity. The NHS won’t do anything because it’s cosmetic. So are we now saying that if I’m upset enough about it then it counts as a MH issue and they have to fix it? Because I find it very wrong that trans people can have their breasts surgically altered on the NHS but I can’t.

Platinum78 I've no idea what thread you've been reading, but no one here has denied that the NHS provides not only care for immediately life-threatening injuries and conditions and life-saving treatments for other issues but also treatments that merely improve the lives of patients.

So your point 3 is a bit pointless here. Well, other than displaying rather astonishing ignorance about antenatal care. Pregnancy complications are common, health issues are common, pregnancy loss is unfortunately common and without antenatal care all of these problems would occur even more frequently.

And tough on point 2. Ongoing discussion and it ain't stopping anytime soon, however distasteful you find it. Necessary because funds are limited. NHS resources are finite and must be allocated according to most pressing need first.

Your point 9 is false. The NHS provides cosmetic procedures under some circumstances. Each health board makes their own decisions as to what they will or will not cover and under which circumstances. Hence I know patients who had those kinds of procedures on the NHS.

We don't need your info on points 4 to 8, we're quite aware. What we've been saying is that long waiting lists are the norm for many other conditions. Did you somehow miss that?

What we're saying is that the claim that patients who identify as trans are treated worse than all others is false. Go and talk to a few parents waiting years for their kids to get a proper diagnosis (just met an old friend in the park, who told me they'd finally got that appointment to get their kid tested and diagnosed. Only took them 6 years. Which means they missed out on help during vital developmental stages.) We waited two years for something where the waiting list target says six weeks for our kid. I was in agony for nine months while waiting for a bed to free up for surgery. And after my op I cleaned the toilet myself and fed my bed neighbour because there wasn't enough staff to go around. I mean this is not unusual for a healthcare system that is underfunded and understaffed.

The one thing I wouldn't dream of doing is suing the NHS and making it worse by forcing them to divert resources to lawyers. But maybe that's just me.

platinum of course discussion of whether certain treatments should be available on the NHS are appropriate. The NHS is not a bottomless pit of money and there are always ongoing discussions about what treatments should be available on it. That was why NICE was set up!

What on earth do you think pregnancy care is for if not because it can be immediately life threatening? Not so long ago child birth in the UK was the leading cause of death of women and even now maternal mortality in the UK stands at 17.4 deaths per 100k live births with women over 40 7.7 times more likely to die than women under 25. In Africa maternal mortality is around 1 in 100. In addition perinatal mental health problems affect up to 20% of women. And that is before we start to consider the child...

I can't believe quite how ignorant someone must be to consider pregnancy care so trivial.

That there might be other causes should not be taboo.

I agree that waiting times, are too long. To feel distress and mental anguish and be told that you could be waiting in excess of 5 years to even have a first consultation is appalling whatever your reason for attending.

But I do think that the process should be more rigorous in terms of addressing other causes of the distress before treating it physically and irreversibly. That therewith be other cases should not be taboo.

I am not going to enter into a debate with people on this forum generally or in this thread specifically, nor am I going to address all of the myriad points raised prior to this post, however, I cannot let the amount of deliberate misinformation being propagated pass without any comment.

1. I absolutely empathise with everyone that is either personally waiting for, or who has a family member, friend, acquaintance, etc who is waiting for care through the NHS.
2. I personally consider discussions about whether some conditions that fall within the deemed scope of NHS provision are more deserving than others to be cruel and inappropriate. If the condition has been deemed to be appropriate for care by the NHS, so be it.
3. The NHS provides healthcare services to people for a variety of conditions that are not considered to be critical or immediately life threatening or mental health issues. Take for example care during pregnancy. The NHS also provides a range of services to address quality of life and other issues such as smoking, obesity, etc.
4. There are 7 adult Gender Identity Clinics covering the whole of England. Some of these clinics have a satellite in another town and there are now also around 4 or so small pilot projects trialling a different service delivery model.
5. In January 2020 (i.e. before Covid) there were approx 13,500 patients on the waiting lists of these 7 clinics with typical waiting times of 2+ years to a first appointment. Note, this is a first appointment, it is not a waiting time to receive a diagnosis, therapy or surgery.

1. More recent statistics indicate that around August 2021, waiting times to a first appointment had increased to between 44 and 62 months. I believe that there has also been a marked increase in the number of patients on the waiting lists but I do not have the data on this to hand.
2. The clinical pathway involves an initial consultation and then there is a second consultation, typically around 18 months later. This second consultation may result in a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. If the patient is diagnosed with gender dysphoria, they will then be referred for treatment/services such as hormone therapy. It may take more than two consultations before a diagnosis and without a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, there is no NHS treatment.
3. The NHS does not provide 'cosmetic' surgeries such as breast augmentation or facial feminisation.

We look at the people who have modified their bodies to resemble cats, lizards and Barbie/Ken dolls and we wonder what has gone wrong. We wonder why the mental health provisions are so poor.

We don't suggest that they really are cats, lizards and Barbie/Ken dolls. We don't change laws and create policies to reify their beliefs and we don't expect other people to put out a saucer of milk or feed them live mice and sack them if they refuse.

I find it impossible to get my head round surgically altering healthy bodies, creating life long patients and long term health implications as a result rather than taking a non invasive approach such as addressing mental health.

But then I remember that many of these people are just pawns in a movement that is more about undermining safeguarding and dismantling women's rights and it all becomes clear again.