ITV News: Crowdfunding fast tracking gender surgery

[BiologyIsReal]

www.itv.com/news/2019-08-09/how-crowdfunding-is-fast-track-to-surgery-for-transgender-patients-stuck-in-waiting-game/

Clinical psychologist thinks demand has not yet plateaued yet and demand is still increasing.

NHS England says it has doubled almost doubled investment since 2015 to £5.7 million.

No comment. I have no words.

There are going to be a lot of people who regret their decisions.
It really worries me that a lot of these desperately unhappy people are looking for a quick fix and surgery is not going to make things better because the cause of their problems is much deeper.

Schrodinger, I hope you and your partner find the help you need. It sounds like a hard situation, and terrible that there's no mental health support.

I am not unsympathetic. However we ended up paying for private orthopedic surgery for my daughter, as she was in real pain, could not sleep, and spent two months in the sort of painkillers you are only supposed to take for 10 days. The NHS wait list was four years.

You only need to watch programmes such as embarrassing bodies to see people who having to wait longer for treatment they really need.

There is a lot of money flowing into trans support. Plus Stonewall et al and nice sidelines in training and policy advice. To be honest I am not totally surprised if these finds are not making their way to people who really need it. And on a personal level I wonder if there is evidence that surgery always solves problems associated with dysphoria. (The unwillingness to allow proper unbiased research in this field is an issue.)

At the end of the day it is about priorities. Cancer, people in pain, people with major mobility or disfigurement problems would be my surgery priorities. If trans health is to be a higher priority the trans community need to support proper evidence based research.

No matter that the end goal is, surgery or no surgery. I imagine it affects you an awful lot if you see something on your body that you don’t feel is “true” or “right”. And I think that should be supported and counselled.

You mean like anorexia?

Yes I agree with that.

Encouraging crowd funding in the absence of that by lobby groups is reprehensible especially when they are also saying its not a mental health issue at the same time.

They can't say they are supporting people when they are effectively simultaneously undermining them in this way.

'chest tissue' JFC

Part of the reason for the huge waiting lists is no doctors want to do this work because it's ethically dodgy as fuck.

no doctors want to do this work because it's ethically dodgy as fuck.

It's interesting to ponder on the reasons why a doctor might want to go into this field.

There is little help for children and young people with my issues on the NHS.Feeling suicidal?attempted suicide in A&E?not serious enough for an appointment with CAMHS.
Parent of transidentifying children no chance.So parent go the the next possible help and get Drs who don't explore the whys but go down the path of least resistance and medical intervention.
Counciling and support on the adult side is just as grim.
This is not anti trans but we need to ensure that for the people wanting to transition that this will answer their issues not leave them with the same issues and whole host of mental and physical problems to deal with.
For children,no one really seems to care about the damage being doneTime will tell but it will be way too late for so many.

I do sympathise with anyone that has issues with their body that causes them anguish - whether that is because they are trans, women that need breast reduction surgery for back pain, anorexia and a whole host of other reasons.

As someone that has had a life-affecting mental health issue for the past 20 years, the NHS is woefully under resourced for dealing with many things, counselling being one of them by a long mile. I have been suicidal many times. I've had plenty of referrals that haven't helped me in the long term.
Cancer patients, heart attacks, strokes, there are plenty of people on the list too. Being trans does not give you the right to queue jump or expect preferential treatment.

No one suggested an expectation of preferential treatment. We’re well aware there are those with much higher priority.

I was only stating that it wasn’t a surprise to me that some have decided to try and crowdfund.

I’ve posted this before but I think it’s worth repeating.

I was a clinician on an NHS appeals panel some years ago, when a patient appealed being turned down for facial plastic surgery arguing that her poor mental health would improve if we would agree to fund her surgery.

Objectively her face was just fine. There was nothing noticeable at all about the part she was distressed by and so desperate to change and certainly nothing wrong with it. Yet she was convinced that she could only be happy if she had surgery.

Instead of funding the surgery we asked for her to be referred for psychological support. It was very apparent to us on the panel that surgery wouldn’t - couldn’t - solve her underlying MH issues and it would have been very wrong of us to pretend otherwise.

Where are the professional standards of these clinicians?

The size of NHS funding and resources for surgical treatment is suitable for managing the tiny number of transsexuals whose body dysphoria is so severe that other options (counselling, treating comorbid conditions) are ineffective. There were estimated to be about 5000 such people in the UK population of 66 million.

The available services are being utterly overwhelmed because lobby groups have successfully campaigned for the other pathways to be rejected, meaning there is now no "first filter" for the waiting list and the vast majority of those who are affected by gender dysphoria whose situation could actually be relieved without surgery are not allowed to be offered these other routes. So the waiting list is clearly utterly swamped.

I completely understand that for those who went through the "filtering" process before, it must have been a frustratingly slow process so campaigning to have it removed would be appealing but this means that the waiting list is being overwhelmed by people who could have been helped in other ways, or who are not going to actually be helped by surgery because of the nature of their condition (the trans umbrella is so wide there are all sorts of situations under there)

DPwM that's what I'm concerned about.

Pay for my facial surgery or I'll kill myself. = No, please go and talk to a psychologist about your distress and how you came to have such beliefs.

I need trans surgery or I'll kill myself should elicit the same response.

I also worry where crowd funded healthcare will end up. What conditions will be deemed worthy of funding?

I'm fairly sure women's health will be at the back of the queue along with elderly care and mental health. Whilst funding will be available for brave and stunning conditions.

The available services are being utterly overwhelmed because lobby groups have successfully campaigned for the other pathways to be rejected

Exploring the reasons for someone thinking they are/should be the opposite sex is now viewed as 'conversion therapy'.

www.bpc.org.uk/sites/psychoanalytic-council.org/files/MoU2_FINAL_0.pdf

For the purposes of this document ’conversion therapy’ is an umbrella term for a therapeutic approach, or any model or individual viewpoint that demonstrates an assumption that any sexual orientation or gender identity is inherently preferable to any other, and which attempts to bring about a change of sexual orientation or gender identity, or seeks to supress an individual’s expression of sexual orientation or gender identity on that basis.

old I find that definition absolutely terrifying, especially as usual it is said in the same sentence as sexuality.