Petition requests that sex-change operations be resumed
TRANSSEXUALS in Singapore are refusing to accept news that
Singapore's last sex-change clinic has been shut.
They have launched a petition to reopen it.
The National University Hospital's (NUH) Gender Identity Clinic
was the last hospital here to perform sex-change surgeries after
Mount Elizabeth Hospital stopped performing the procedure back in
1992.
According to a Reuters report, the petition was initiated by
26-year-old administrative assistant Ian Lee, who plans to undergo a
female-to-male sex-change operation, and several other friends.
They hope to gather at least 100 signatures by next month. To
date, more than 60 people have signed up.
''It's really making things very difficult for us by closing the
clinic. The main purpose is just to appeal to NUH to help them see
that there is actually a market demand,'' Lee told Reuters.
Even some doctors are protesting the closure. In April, Dr Tsoi
Wing Foo, a psychiatrist who works with transsexuals, and another
practitioner wrote to NUH asking for the clinic to be reopened.
Singapore's first sex change was carried out in 1971, with 409
operations performed between 1980 and 2000.
It was first reported in Eyeball last month that sex-change
operations here had died a quiet death in late March.
So quiet that even the Ministry of Health (MOH) was in the
dark.
A gynaecologist who used to work at NUH told Eyeball that the
last sex-change operation was performed on March 20.
In the Eyeball report, the reason for closing the clinic, said an
NUH spokesman, was because the supervisor of such operations had
left the hospital. The spokesman said in an e-mail: ''We will be
reviewing plans to decide when such operations can be resumed.''
With the closure of the clinic, transsexuals have to go abroad
for the multi-stage operation, which used to cost between $10,000
and $20,000. It costs three to four times more in the United
States.
Thailand offers a cheaper alternative but has less expertise in
female-to-male operations and questionable healthcare standards.
When contacted last night, NUH reiterated: ''We will be reviewing
plans to decide when such operations can be
resumed.''
