Transgress the NGS have welcomed an announcement from the HSE asserting that the National Gender Service does not have the authority to close its waiting list to new patients seeking trans healthcare.

Last week, the Ireland’s health executive issued a statement informing the NGS that, according to the National Waiting List Management Policy, waiting lists “may only be managed in accordance with established, documented procedures that ensure fairness, transparency, and compliance with governance standards”.

The HSE added that the NGS does not “have the authority to close this waiting list”. According to RTÉ, there are over 2,400 people on the waiting list, which the NGS claimed it would close in March. The service is currently only seeing individuals who were referred four and a half years ago, and community organisations estimate that anyone entering the system today could face a wait of more than ten years.

A spokesperson for Transgress the NGS told GCN that the HSE’s announcement is “positive”, as “it marks the first time they’ve publicly pushed back against the way NGS clinicians run the service”.

“The NGS has obviously been feeling very under pressure due to our campaign and the recent Dáil motion about trans healthcare,” a spokesperson said. “It seems as though they tried to use closing the waiting list as leverage to get government backing for the service but this backfired and instead they’re starting to look increasingly isolated and like a liability for the HSE and the government.”

They continued: “However it’s obviously not just the NGS that’s at fault or needs to change. The HSE announcement just means the situation is the same as the start of last week, which was already a disaster.”

Transgress the NGS reiterated calls for urgent action from the HSE to develop a new model of trans healthcare that follows an “informed-consent model”. The group also called for guidance to be issued to GPs with regard to providing gender-affirming care while this new model is being developed.

Last week, a coalition of leading Irish LGBTQ+ organisations said the NGS’s announcement to close its waiting lists exposes the extent of a system “in collapse” and will leave thousands of transgender and non-binary people without a viable pathway to essential healthcare.