Northern Ireland’s Health Minister Mike Nesbitt announced on Tuesday, July 22, that £806,000 would be allocated to the Belfast Trust to support trans healthcare. The investment will go towards Brackenburg Clinic, Northern Ireland’s adult gender identity clinic, which has been faced with understaffing and financial limitations for the past seven years, according to Belfast Live. This resulted in long wait times and restricted capacity for service users.
Currently, the trans clinic has a waiting list of over 1,000 patients, with some waiting seven and a half years for treatment. The funding announced by Nesbitt will go towards expanding the Gender Identity Lifespan service, which the minister hopes will reduce wait times.
Health Ministers have long been trying to find a solution to the clinic’s ongoing staffing shortages and financial problems.
In 2019, then Health Minister Robin Swann established the Gender Identity Service Pathway Group to create a solution for the trans clinic’s long waitlist. After mounting pressure from the trans community, the group opened a Service User Input Panel, allowing community members and their family members to offer input on the service.
Alexa Moore, the Policy Campaigns and Communications Manager of The Rainbow Project, said the collapse of trans healthcare services in Northern Ireland, specifically this clinic, has caused many in the community to be without care unless self-funded. Moore was grateful for the news of the investment, but noted that there still needs to be more done.
“There is significant work to be done to ensure this new service is fit-for-purpose, meets the needs of trans communities, and follows international best practice,” Moore said.
Scott Cuthbertson, Chief Executive of The Rainbow Project, reiterated that this news is due to protests and feedback from the community.
“This allocation of funding is long overdue and is the result of the hard work and campaigning from particularly trans people across Northern Ireland who have been forced to advocate for their own basic right to care,” Cuthbertson said.
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