Transsexuals discouraged by long wait for surgery
Transsexuals waiting for gender reassignment surgery say the waiting list is so long and the procedure is so costly that the Government should consider sending people overseas.
Jasmine Eastall, 28, is so desperate for the surgery – which she says is the final piece ‘‘to being the woman you really are’’ – that she is considering returning to prostitution to fund the treatment herself.
While Ms Eastall was born with male genitalia, she says she’s never identified with being a male.
Although the cost of male-to-female surgery is an average of $45,000 in New Zealand, the price in Thailand is about a third of that, says Racheal Mcgonigal, who recently wrote to Health Minister Tony Ryall urging him to consider alternatives to the current funding.
The Health Ministry says 53 people are on the waiting list, with an average sevenyear wait – but Ms Mcgonigal says the wait will probably be much longer than that, considering only 12 surgeries have been performed in the last eight years.
‘‘At this level of surgeries New Zealand transsexuals are being strongly disadvantaged and marginalised by our health system,’’ she says.
‘‘Here in New Zealand it is very much regarded as cosmetic surgery, but it’s not.
‘‘It’s easy for people to just say it’s plastic surgery, but it’s basically a disability on a person born with the wrong genitalia.’’
Ms Mcgonigal, 56, travelled to Thailand in 2006 to have the male-to-female surgery performed, but says many people cannot afford to do the same.
Simone Whitlow, on the waiting list since last year, is saving to travel to Thailand to have the surgery performed.
The ministry has provided funding for gender-reassignment surgery under its High Cost Treatment Pool since 2004. The 12 operations funded in the past eight years were all performed by a team of three Christchurch-based surgeons.
It has funded three people to travel overseas for female-to-male surgery, as no Kiwi surgeons can perform the operation.
But Louise Gizzi, parent of four young children, says the ministry should consider sending people overseas as well as performing the surgery here.
The Dunedin-based systems engineer is living as a female and on the waiting list, while also saving for the surgery herself, ‘‘because you’re on the waiting list but you never think you’re going to get there’’.
‘‘Even if I did get the surgery tomorrow I would fight for others,’’ she says.
‘‘It’s so fundamental to who we are.’’