Scottish NHS ‘failing trans people’ as more go private

[Igneococcus]

In the Times today:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2007b478-531e-11ed-b965-3a5f647316f8?shareToken=3d88b74d05e26e0d27c78023bb909bf0

"“It sucks. And it’s so frustrating because the crowdfunding system is just inherently unfair. If you are young and conventionally attractive you will likely get funded. If you are not, the chances are you will just be sitting with your GoFundMe, with like £200 in it, for like five years.”"

There is a crowdfund running set up by the mother of a kid who was in the same year as dd (at uni now) for surgery and I occasionally check where it is at and it's been at ~£800 (£500 from one donor alone) for over a year now, and there have been barely any posts by the mother on the local FB pages about it recently. I hope that means growing up and leaving school changed their minds.

IMO the NHS should not be providing these services. Cutting off healthy body parts, where's 'first do no harm'.

Life saving surgeries my arse.
What they are really talking about is cosmetic surgery which is rarely done on the NHS in Scotland and when it is it falls behind all the medically necessary procedures like cancer patients.
This is how it should be and as for no other service making you wait 3 years ha I've been waiting 7+ for my previously cosmetic now medically necessary eye surgery up here and I'm not the only one

Maybe having to wait is a good thing. Time to mature and change friends, research what you are doing, grow up.

an aunt of a friend had to wait and wait to have a brain tumour removed. Now if that wasn’t life saving…

With the large number of detransitioners, we shouldn't be doing anything irreversible before 25, maybe older, so waits are a good thing.

There was a promotion on a stage news page, where people were raising money for surgery for a trans actor, through a big concert. The actor has been on hormones for just two years.
Was interesting that there was a bit of push back in the comments, even for a uber woke sector.

I'm torn between not wanting the NHS sued when people regret this surgery, and putting vulnerable people in the path of doctors who'd do anything for money.

NHS shouldn't be paying for any of it. It's unnecessary cosmetic surgery (and some will regret later and want to sue)

It's so bizarre that Scotland and England have extended support for care leavers with some forms of support until age 26, yet there's this constant narrative about how kids know who they are and must access "life saving" medical interventions.

Wales is piloting a form of income for care leavers, because they "continue to face significant barriers to achieving a successful transition into adulthood."

Which is it? Are under 18s and young adults - and toddlers if you listen to Stonewall and co - really so mature they know their own minds, or does maturity come with time and are young adults still in need of some help?

www.gov.scot/policies/looked-after-children/children-leaving-care/

www.gov.uk/government/publications/extending-personal-adviser-support-to-age-25

gov.wales/basic-income-care-leavers-wales-pilot-announced

What is the number?

Have to admit I didn’t realise that the Go Fund Me team actually donate to some of the individual causes themselves. I had a quick look to see how many people were seeking gender affirmation treatment and on the first one I looked up (top surgery) Go Fund Me had donated £200 from their Give Back Scheme (they choose fundraisers that have ‘touched us’). As a business they can do what they want with their money I guess.

Waiting lists are crazy for all medical conditions, so why should a vanity thing take precedence? Or even a place in the queue? In fact, I seem to recall that gender stuff is no longer a mental health condition ( their wishes) and it's not a physical condition so why do the need any treatment at all? Out of the public purse, anyway. Its contradicting itself constantly.

A mastectomy - they had back to a mastectomy fund? I wonder why they thought this was a good fund. Have they helped out the desperate women on there trying to find reconstructive breast surgery (one in particular following ‘top surgery’ regret)

Check out this FOI re NHS provision of "masculinising genital surgery".

They expect to be doing around 280 surgeries a year at Chelsea and Westminster hospital once the new service is running at full capacity with further provision from two private facilities so over 300pa in total. I'm afraid the Cass report and closure of GIDS is too late for many young women who are well down the pathway to irreversible mutilating surgery.

We know this surgery has a high rate of complications and the proposals from C&W pretty much confirm this as their business plan includes the provision of a whole time tissue viability nurse. For those who don't know TVNs are concerned with wound healing - more specifically wounds that don't heal. Infected wounds. Leg ulcers. Pressure sores. What can possibly be expected to go wrong with these procedures that the services of a full time TVN will be needed?

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/nhsserviceeforprovisionnof_mas#incoming-2108473

How many do there need to be until we stop giving teens drugs that were discontinued for paedophiles because the effects were too severe? Or until we actually ban non-medical genital surgery? How many is enough for you?

It shouldn't be done on the NHS.

It shouldn't be on crowdfunding websites, either.

I do think that 25 is a bit excessive but definitely somewhere between 18-21

BiscuitLover3678 - quick look on detrans reddit - well over 40,000 members.

Research suggests little followup in UK healthcare, a concern noted in Bell case and Tavi whistleblowers - so we have little meaningful evidence to support some concerning treatment pathways.

You can either conclude these people disappear because they are happy with their transition, or they disappear because they see there are no support/services for detrans in UK... who knows.. theres little/no data.

The Dutch researchers post transition follow up methodology appears flawed and the measure of success is a low bar - in terms of clinical aspirations for improved mental health, wellbeing or adult function. Very sad.

Az hakeem gives a candid account of working with adult transitioners and observed regrets aplenty. Interestingly this therapeutic support folded when az hakeem left the Tavistock in 2012.

So well over 10 years ago there was at least one therapeutic pathway that acknowledged and worked with people who regretted transition- and just before the cohort exploded in numbers - this service was stopped... and tragically the NHS had an opportunity to uniquely research, support and improve understanding/outcomes for gender care, but there was apparently no will or enthusiasm to do so.

BiscuitLover3678 how many detrans or regretters would trigger a concern for you?

Reconstructive surgery, on the NHS, after illness or injury? Yes.

Surgery to remove healthy body parts of people who are perfectly healthy? No.

Pay for it privately if you must, although why this abhorrent practice is even legal, is beyond me.

This.

Totally agree.

I never thought I'd ever come across the services of a plastic surgeon. Then one day DS got a finger caught in a door. Local A&E sent us to children's hospital. Where I was told Plastic Surgeon is busy with a couple of burns cases but he'll get to you!
And once again I thank my lucky stars for the skills and experience of the NHS.

The nhs should not touch this area of 'medicine' with a barge pole because the negligence claims that will filter through from it are horrendous. The success rates of this surgery are low and the complication rates high. That is enough to just say no tbh.

Mutilating healthy bodies should be banned