The Bay Medical Centre in Shanklin has come under fire from a transgender patient who claims he has received discriminatory treatment – including a long battle for his new gender to be officially recognised.
The Islander, who wishes to remain anonymous, has been living as a man for over 6 years and has been a patient at the practice – formally known as Shanklin Medical Centre – for over 10 years.
In 2014, the patient changed his name by deed poll and provided the legal paperwork to the medical centre the same day. However, the practice refused to change the patient’s gender on their system and this continued for several years, causing undue stress. Finally, after speaking to the business manager about how discriminated he was feeling, the patient’s gender was changed on the computer system.
Despite the official recognition, discrimination is said to continue to this day making life harder than it needs to be for ‘Mr X’. The centre has advised that the GP cannot prescribe testosterone injections to him, even under the guidance of a private specialist. It’s claimed that the surgery is not willing to collaborate with the specialist to ensure that Mr X is receiving the best quality of care.
The man, in his 20s, has told Island Echo that he is currently being prescribed testosterone in a gel form by his private specialist, but that they are unable to prescribe testosterone injections until he is trained to safely use them. The specialist advised him to approach his GP to assist with this, but The Bay Medical Centre has failed to provide training to enable him to safely self-medicate.
Speaking to Island Echo, the patient has described the situation he faces:
“As with other injections like EpiPens, they could show me how to [inject] with empty syringes or a practice pen etc. It’s just to make sure the technique is right. Regardless of what the injection is, there’s a duty of care to ensure patient safety. As with all injections, a health care provider is required to ensure it is done right.
Article continues below this advertisement “I am appalled at the treatment I have received. It is unacceptable that I have been treated in this way.
“I have just as much right to treatment as any other man. If I was born a male and had a testosterone deficiency the medical centre would provide me with the same treatment that they are refusing to give to me as a transgender patient.
“There is an increasing awareness of transgender healthcare in the UK. Unfortunately, discrimination like this is what causes transgender people to feel trapped, worthless, and unable to find the right help”.
It’s also said that the medical centre will not take vital blood tests to check that Mr X’s hormones are correct and won’t provide a blood form so he can have the blood taken elsewhere. The patient has been paying for private medical care, costing £250 each and every time bloods need to be checked.
In a statement, Shanklin Medical Centre have said:
“The Bay Medical Practice is aware of this patient and the challenges they and others are facing.
“We acknowledge our duty to support the needs of our patients within the constraints of the NHS offer. We are also aware that there is a long waiting time to access the NHS Gender Identity Clinic nationally and therefore many patients choose to look to the private sector instead.
“We are unable to discuss individual patients, however would like to reassure you that we have consulted with our Local Medical Committee and have followed their guidance and that of the General Medical Council”.
If I was you fella I’d go see a solicitor. This is detrimental to your health & well being. All the depression its causing & stress, I’d call it victimisation on behalf of that practice.
They have duty of care & as far as this story goes all I can see is that they’re failing you.
Its irrelevant if they agree or disagree with your choice of gender change or not.
Home injections are easy, it takes one maybe two times to be shown. Thats a cop out, because if a newly diagnosed diabetic needed insulin they would show them immediately, same with epipens.
I say good luck.
The practice is a disgrace!! They should have treated you fairly!
There are some strange people out there folks
Good, I like strange. Makes life very interesting. Be strange everyone! 🙂
Poor chap, hope the situation is resolved for you. Stay strong…
It is a shame you have been treated like this but at the moment all the GPs seem to have shut up shop as far as seeing their patients. The Bay needs to look at its procedures and practices to ensure all it’s patient are dealt with in an appropriate manner.
This sounds like the chap wants his private healthcare on the NHS.
Blame the fact that this poor patient cannot access the Specialist treatment he needs from the specialists on the NHS, not the poor GPs who are trying to work within the constraints and are very easy to blame and voiceless to properly reply.
Come back after Covid, fella. All the GP’s are busy hiding under stones, frightened that they might catch a small cough or cold from you. Absolute disgrace.
Doctors have gone into hiding – it’s only the nurses doing the work and seeing the patients in person. Doctors are hiding at the end of the phone if your lucky.
Go see Dr Jordan Peterson,he’ll sort you out
So, during a global pandemic, your test levels are so much more important than elderly and vulnerable people getting the priority care they require. And ‘IT IS SAID’ is used quite a lot. So no proof then? Tampons and sanitary pads have just been deemed non-essential items. So how the hell are gender transforming hormones essential. Stop attention seeking and wait your bloody turn!….. no pun intended
it’s the ✨transphobia✨ for me
Well said. I totally agree with you. Stop this individual from wasting the NHS time and money. There are far more important medical conditions that take priority. Back of the queue for her/him I’m afraid.
You pathetic ignorant parasites, I wonder if your one of them that are grossly over weight costing the NHS a fortune, or even a drug taker, or maybe an alcohol addiction…..
You need to look at other areas not Transgender people that you have no expertise about….
truth- your name calling has invalidated your argument and as such you are to be ignored.
That goes for most of us then!…
Speak for yourself only you ignorant individual.
Agree with Truth.. Those homophobic transphobic human parasites who thins they are more important…. LGBTQ rights and support needs to be all the time….
vystopia – if LGBTQ showed the same level of support, understanding and acceptance of the gender content, heterosexual majority of society, then perhaps you might get a greater level of acceptance yourself.
You aren’t doing yourselves any favours by being an antagonistic, me, me, me first, minority that endlessly whines about its lot in life and blames everything on the majority, instead of looking at yourselves first and asking the question – am i just boring everyone to tears with my endless whining about LGBTQ.
what an idio* you are.. i am lgbtq ally.. hardly me me me.! so many idio*s like you….
dystopian – using insults invalidates your argument and you will be ignored.
the purpose of the health system is to make those sick, well and to repair those damaged in accidents. It is not there to be used by people who believe they are a different gender, as that is neither a sickness nor an accident.
if this person wishes to mutilate themselves physically and take medication that alters the look they give to other people, because that is all it does- it doesn’t change them genetically or internally, then they should be doing this at their own expense and not at the expense of someone else, whose place they are taking in the healthcare system.
Had this individual not been taking up the precious time of those who work at the bay, then they would be able to spend more time, with a genuinely ill person.
She is a woman biologically and different medical procedures and tests are necessary for women, so the medical centre is absolutely right to mark her down as female.
Very very well said
it’s the ✨transphobia✨ for me. how hard is it to use HIS preferred pronouns omg i stg you Karens if he wants to identify as a male that is HIS CHOICE so stop being transphobic or don’t put your silly opinion in the comments because you are wrong.
and it is the taxpayers choice not to fund unnecessary use of the NHS – that individual has a perfectly functioning body, as provided to them by the mother who gave birth to it. If you are stupid enough to mutilate that body and take a concoction of chemicals to wreck the finely tuned balance of that bodies functionality – then you can do so at your own expense and not deprive someone else of their genuine need to visit the GP for a genuine illness
society chose to create surgeries so that ill people can choose to seek help – they are not their for fools to allow themselves to be part of a frankenstein project.
naturally born males, do not want a mutilated and chemically altered female body hanging around, irrespective of what the individual that inhabits that body thinks it is – doesn’t matter which way you look at it – that individual does not have a naturally created male body and as such will always be viewed differently and is just wasting the NHS time and money.
There are some medical conditions that are gender specific whatever changes or medication is used.
Haemophilia springs to mind, passed on from mothers only to their male children, I recently read of a woman with a degenerative eye condition whose vision was maintained by a serum which had to be made from male blood, and there are many more.
I don’t doubt that this individual would rush to the courts if Doctors accidentally treated him incorrectly because he’d hidden his birth gender.
My only complaint with the Shanklin practice is how badly it’s on-line services have deteriorated since it combined with The Heights.
The NHS is there to heal the sick, not the whim of anybody who WANTS to be something they are not, If this person goes on to have an infection of the womb or ovaries but gets wrong diagnosis because it has been treated as a man not the gender it is I bet they would sue for negligence.
The Practice should treat everyone with dignity and respect, which they do not.The stressI have to deal with when contacting reception at this surgery. Its horrible.
Poor snowflake. He or she should be grateful to have a life. 1st class world issues. Go to a third world country and see the suffering. Be happy with who you are and what you have got.
yes marcus – this individual has so little to worry about, that its mind is so free of stress/fear and worry that it finds time to question whether it should have a different body or not.
4000 children a day die in africa due to starvation – they would like to have just enough food to keep the bodies they have alive, they haven’t got time to worry about what gender they are, how they are being addressed, what pronouns are being used and how enraged they are at the slightest little thing – no – they are wholly focused on getting enough food, just to live another day.
Buy a strap on, pump some iron, save lives