Watch: Malta’s Specialists Are Hesitant Over Gender Surgeries ‘Due To Fear Of Legal Trouble’
LGBT+ activists are trying to pressure the government to fulfil its electoral promise to provide free gender reassignment surgery but the reality is a bit more complex than mere political will.
While the PL had promised it in its manifesto two years ago, it appears as though psychiatric and medical specialists are hesitant to get involved in these surgeries.
In a recent interview with Lovin Malta’s Tim Diacono, Health Minister Jo Etienne Abela said that the UK’s recent Cass Review and other developments overseas have placed such surgeries in a legal grey area.
The UK’s only gender identity clinic for children and young people, in Tavistock, ended up closing down.
“Our healthcare system is based on the British system,” Abela said. “These surgeries are very advanced and complex and we are ready to offer them but we cannot force specialists to carry them out if they don’t want to, and when I talk about specialists I’m also referring to psychologists and psychiatrists.”
“When specialists observe all of these medicolegal problems overseas they take a step back. Although our employees are covered by the state, they aren’t immune from legal proceedings and I think many specialists can see that they might end up in trouble and are taking a step back.”
Abela said that while gender augmentation surgeries are currently available in Malta, full gender reassignment surgery isn’t. And he said that while specialists can technically come to Malta and offer these surgeries, he would be “quite worried” if they stay for a short time before leaving the country.
However, the minister confirmed that he agrees with gender reassignment surgery as a point of principle.
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