Montreal, Canada
— A coalition of Montreal gender advocacy
groups, along with the transsexual and questioning
community in the city, are banding together in an attempt
to strengthen the process of publicly-funded sexual
reassignment surgery in Quebec.
"Our goal is starting the
process of researching this issue with people who have
accurate information from transsexual and questioning
people, as well as health care providers," said Tynan
Jarrett, a coordinator at Project 10, an information and
support centre for the lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender and questioning youth also known as the
Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans and Queer
community.
Project 10, along with
Action Santé and Concordia University's 2110
centre, have received few clear answers from the
provincial public health care provider, the Régie
de l'Assurance Maladie du Québec (RAMQ) regarding
sexual reassignment surgery, commonly referred to as
SRS.
Their intent has been to
gather as much information as possible about statistics
such as how many people have been accepted for SRS in the
public health care system, what conditions they were
accepted under and the type of surgeries
performed.
The RAMQ has been very
reluctant to provide information.
"[RAMQ] said that
they were unable to answer our questions at the time, but
they would get back to us as soon as they would be able
to give an answer," said Jarrett. But those answers have
been slow in coming; Project 10 organizers said
invitations sent to several RAMQ officials to speak at a
recent information session were all declined.
Jarret said that many
people who have looked into the process found it to be
very complicated and unorganized, leaving patients
frustrated.
"Because the surgery does
not have adequate resources within the healthcare system,
a lot of the discretion is left up to the psychiatrists
and the group of people assigned to monitor the
transsexual person," said Anne, who chose not to disclose
her last name.
The situation is rendered
more complex as publicly-funded SRS must be performed in
the Czech Republic because it is the cheapest option for
the provincial government.
"The government is making
this surgery very hard to get and this encourages
bureaucratic obstacles within the system."
Anne hopes to have SRS in
the future. She worries that the system lacks in its
ability to deal with personal issues that matter most.
"The choice to have surgery is not easy. They need to
stop following such strict guidelines and start listening
to what the patients think."
SRS is expensive; it can
cost $15,000 for basic genital reconstruction. Even if
someone is approved to have the surgery paid for by the
government, they must initially pay the cost in order to
be reimbursed.
"It's hard enough for
anyone to put up $15,000," said Anne. "If you have a hard
time keeping a job because you don't fit into society,
good luck."
According to Jarrett,
talk circulates every year around the transsexual
community about people receiving public funding for
SRS.
"It's pretty well known
that SRS is covered by RAMQ, but only if they are
performed in a public hospital," said Jarrett. "But
because there are no doctors in the public sector willing
to perform these surgeries, trans people are being forced
to pay for them in the private sector."
