A senior consultant says he wants an official inquiry to be carried out by The Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, into why the HSE continued sending children for treatment at the unsafe facility.
Dr. Paul Moran says he has raised concerns about the HSE’s relationship with the so-called Tavistock satellite clinic on numerous occasions as far back as 2019.
Moran says he works with former Tavistock patients in Loughlinstown Hospital, and claims many of them were put on hormones when they weren’t ready, and had numerous other concerns that should have been addressed first.
However, the HSE has said it will continue sending children experiencing gender confusion to Tavistock as long as it remains open, despite the controversy, the report on the clinic’s failings and the NHS announcement that the clinic would close.
Just this week Gript published an article detailing the shocking history of the hitherto controversial UK based gender clinic.
Niamh Ui Bhriain wrote, “the Tavistock clinic in the UK has been closed down because it was deemed ‘not safe’ for the children who were rushed along a path that has brought horrendous and unnecessary surgery for some, and significant anguish and regret for others”.
Despite findings of a nature serious enough to warrant the closure of the clinic, which is set to shut its doors next year, the HSE has said it will continue to send children to receive ‘gender affirming’ treatment, claiming that any treatment of children with hormones or puberty blockers is supervised by Irish consultants.
Speaking on Morning Ireland, HSE director for integrated care Dr. Siobhan Ni Bhriain said the HSE would continue referrals to Tavistock saying “it hasn’t been deemed not safe” and if it had it “would have been closed immediately”.
“We will continue to refer while Tavistock is still open” she said, adding “we will monitor it extremely closely”.
The Interim report by Dr. Hilary Cass OBE, which led to the closure of the clinic, found that services at Tavistock were leaving young people at considerable risk of poor mental health and distress, and that having only one clinic was not a “safe of viable long term option”
234 Irish children have been referred to the Tavistock clinic in London since 2015, in spite of senior health experts voicing serious concerns about the clinic.