NHS: Court Case: Surgery

The following Court Case was referenced in an NHS policy, from 2007, which would appear to have been written by Transgender Lobby groups.

I covered that policy in this piece:

NHS Trans Policy

The court transcript if you wish to read, in full, is linked below: 👇

North West Lancashire Health Authority v A & Ors [1999] EWCA Civ 2022 (29 July 1999)

The original case was taken by three trans-identified males who had been refused NHS funding for their ”sexual reassignment surgery”. The case hinged on whether Health Authority was operating a blanket ban on the surgeries or, as they claimed, taking each case on it’s merits. The particular context was a more restrictive policy, adopted in 1995, which focused expenditure on cases with an ”overriding clinical need”.

The details of the original appellants were as follows: All male but all claiming a ”female sexual identity”. Each, we are told, had been ”living as a woman” ; which begs the question how is a woman supposed to live? It is on this subjective, sexist, notion the foundations of the Gender Industrial Complex rest. 😳

In this case the apellant is the Health Authority who are appealing an earlier decision, by Judge Hidden, that declared their policy unlawful. The three trans-identified males claim the policy is irrational because they are ill and in need of the surgery. The Authority counter that the have limited financial resources, they are required to prioritise and ”transsexualism” is, rightly, they argue, deemed low priority. As an aside, the cost of this surgery, in 1995, was £8000. The judgement also highlights that the condition was understood as a mental disorder at that time. 👇

Medical Procedures of no proven benefit!

The Authority set out it’s thinking about the surgical procedures deemed to yield little benefit.

”Gender Reassignment” was identified, along with cosmetic surgery, as one area where they would no longer purchase the medical intervention. The exception made was where a substantial body of medical opinion attested to it’s effectiveness. The document added the following:

The Authority categorised ”Gender Reassignment as a procedure not backed by “carefully conducted, scientific, research” and expressed the view that it is uncertain whether the surgery was ”effective, ineffective or harmful”.

The policy did allow for an exception if an overriding clinical need could be established but a diagnosis of ”Gender Identity Disorder” was not deemed sufficient by itself. The post-holder, tasked with making these decisions, was the Director of Public Health and Public Policy. The trans-identified males’ cases were all examined in 1996/97 and surgery was refused. One of the men claimed the refusal had triggered their epilepsy. No evidence was produced to either substantiate the epilepsy or that transsexualism had any link to the development of epilepsy.

Dr Suddell was the post holder tasked with justifying these decisions which were, he argued, based on competing priorities, cost effectiveness and also the efficacy of the treatment. He set out his arguments below: 👇

Dr Suddell argued there was uncertainty about the benefits, pointed out it was the only condition that involved destroying healthy body parts and he expressed the view it was more beneficial for the patient to reconcile to their biology. He also cast doubt on the medical literature which claimed an 88% success rate, pointed out the lack of controlled, randomised trials, lack of research into long-term outcomes and bias on behalf of those producing the literature. All points which continue to be raised, to this day.

Those acting for the patients advanced the following to rebut these claims. All of those named are involved in the Gender Industrial Complex. They argue that the fact that the body parts are healthy overlooks the Transsexual’s ill health; which will persist until the offending body parts are removed. They also argue any attempt to reconcile a patient to their biology is ineffective and unethical.

Dr Russell Reid

At this point it is worth taking a closer looking at one of the people providing expert testimony: Dr Russell Reid.

Dr Russell Reid was found guilty of serious professional misconduct. His case was covered in the Guardian. He was accused of rushing five patients into sex changing treatments

One of his patients was in the grip of manic depression and only narrowly avoided an unnecessary double mastectomy.

Another was a convicted paedophile who was given the surgery and now regrets it.

A further patient, who you may know from twitter 👇 was disgusted that he was not struck off and was involved in further litigation against Reid.

Claudia McClean

Back to the Judgement

This case was heralded as a victory by Transgender Lobby Groups. It is true that the Authority were taken to task for claiming they did not operate a blanket ban on these procedures and their policy was deemed unlawful. They were not, however, required to provide automatic surgery based on the arguments put forward; which were based on arguments about interference with their Human Rights. The Judges were critical of the use of the European Court of Human Rights, by those acting for the respondents, and spent quite a long time explaining why.

The final decision was a recognition that the Authority can have regard to resource allocation but, in this case, they have acknowledged “transsexualism” as an illness and their policy is not clear about how they determine “overriding clinical need”. Activists may trumpet these victories but the creation of a medically dependent ”Transgender” class is a victory for predatory capitalism.

YOU ARE THE PRODUCT!

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