Health minister's comments on gender clinic 'raise more questions than answers' - Gaston
Comments by the health minister Mike Nesbitt on why he authorised an expanded gender identity service raise more questions than they answer, an MLA has said.
TUV’s Timothy Gaston says he is “deeply concerned” by the minister’s comments “defending additional public money for a service whose very foundations are increasingly in doubt — not just among the public but among leading clinicians, independent reviewers, and even the minister himself”.
The Ulster Unionist leader has been under pressure to provide more detail on what the service will entail – after his own MLAs challenged the policy of having no lower age limit on referrals.
In a BBC interview he suggested that children would not be affirmed by the clinic and that there would be a focus on “psychological and psychiatric help”.
However, Mr Gaston has questioned why the health minister is pressing ahead with the service despite acknowledging that many questions remain unanswered.
The North Antrim MLA said: “Minister Nesbitt has openly acknowledged there are unanswered questions about how this service operated in the past and what previous Ministers actually knew about its practices.
“In his own words: ‘There are questions to be asked about how this service operated and about what ministers knew about it.’
“That is fair enough and indeed my own party has correspondence with the health department seeking clarity on who knew what and when. But if even the Minister is still looking for such basic answers, then why is he pressing ahead with expanding and funding it further, before those questions have been answered?
“How can the Department of Health justify allocating more taxpayer money when there is no clarity about past governance, no transparent review, and no public consultation?”.
The TUV man says the Cass Review of gender services for children criticises “the very lack of clinical oversight and scrutiny that Minister Nesbitt admits existed here”.
He said that given pressures on the health service, people deserve to know why more money is going into a “controversial, ideologically driven service”.