Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 4 July 2013

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children

Transgender Health Issues: Discussion

10:50 am

Photo of John CrownJohn Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for not being present at the beginning of the presentation. I wish to make a point and ask a question. In Irish health care, there is a strange intersection of publicly funded institutions that are privately owned and accountable to entities that are not appointed by the public. This is a long way of saying that we have many hospitals that are run by the religious. Is there any indication of systematic discrimination against the needs of trans people by hospitals? I note that the institution where most of the trans-related endocrinology takes place is St. Columcille's Hospital in Loughlinstown, which is staffed by fine people but would not be considered a national centre for anything. I am not saying this disparagingly. My colleagues from St. Vincent's provide the consultant care there and it is a regional hospital that, for historical reasons, provides some of the overflow services for endocrinology and obesity work, which cannot be done at St. Vincent's. Are the main university hospitals stepping up to the plate and doing what needs to be done or is any of them systematically saying "No".

With reference to the point on endocrinologists not answering the issue, our guests might take that matter up with Dr. Crowley and ask why the HSE and the Department of Health have conspired over the years to give us the smallest number of specialists in every speciality of any country in the OECD, typically running at figures that are approximately 70% of the UK's figures, which in turn are approximately one third of the continental figures, giving us a figure of one in five of the recommended number by international standards.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.