Gender-affirming healthcare availability

Gloria Fraser made this Official Information request to Nelson Marlborough District Health Board

The request was successful.

From: Gloria Fraser

Kia ora,

I am writing to request information about the gender-affirming healthcare services provided by the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board, as a follow up to a similar request I made in May 2018.

Could you please advise whether the following gender-affirming healthcare services are funded by the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board for transgender patients, and whether the services are currently available:

- Puberty blockers
- Hormone therapy
- Mastectomy
- Hysterectomy
- Orchidectomy
- Facial hair removal
- Breast augmentation
- Voice training
- Facial feminization surgery

Could you please also advise:

- Are transgender healthcare providers under the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board encouraged to follow Oliphant et al’s (2018) Guidelines for gender affirming healthcare for gender diverse and transgender children, young people and adults in Aotearoa New Zealand? If not, which guidelines do they follow, if any?

- Is a readiness assessment required to access gender-affirming healthcare services? (This is an assessment of readiness for treatment from a medical and psychosocial perspective, as well as whether the client understands the risks and benefits of treatment, and is sometimes referred to as a ‘mental health assessment’).

- If a readiness assessment is required to access gender-affirming healthcare services, who carries out this assessment? Is this assessment funded by the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board? Does the assessment use an informed consent model?

- What steps is the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board taking to improve healthcare provision for transgender New Zealanders?

If you require any clarification about this request, please let me know.

Ngā mihi,
Gloria

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From: OIA Request NMDHB
Nelson Marlborough District Health Board

Re: Official Information Act request – Gender-affirming healthcare

The Nelson Marlborough District Health Board acknowledges receipt of your request for Information under the Official Information Act 1982 (“the Act”), received on 12 April 2019. [date received].

Your request has been forwarded to the appropriate person/service for response within 20 working days of receipt, and if we are unable to respond to your request by 15 May 2019 we will notify you of an extension of that timeframe.

Consistent with the purpose of the Act, the letter notifying you of the decision on your request will confirm if we intend to publish the information contained in the response online, with your personal/identifying information redacted.

We will endeavour to respond to your request as soon as reasonably practicable.

On behalf of Nelson Marlborough District Health Board | Private Bag 18 | Nelson 7040 | 03 546 1522

DISCLAIMER:  This electronic message together with any attachments is confidential.  If you are not the intended recipient, do not copy, disclose or use the contents in any way.
Please also advise us by return e-mail that you have received the message and then please destroy. NMDHB is not responsible for any changes made to this message and / or
any attachments after sending by NMDHB.  We use virus scanning software but exclude all liability for viruses or anything similar in this email or any attachment.

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From: OIA Request NMDHB
Nelson Marlborough District Health Board

Re: Official Information Act request – Gender-affirming healthcare – Necessary extension of time

We refer to your official information request received by Nelson Marlborough DHB on 12 April 2019.

The Official Information Act requires that we advise you of our decision on your request no later than 20 working days after the day we received your request. Unfortunately, it will not be possible to meet that time limit and we are therefore writing to notify you of an extension of the time of an additional 10 working days to make our decision, to 29 May 2019.

This extension is necessary because the information requested is not in a readily retrievable format, it has been a very busy time for the responding services, the search through a large quantity of information is required to ascertain what, if any, relevant information to meet the request is available, and meeting the original time limit would unreasonably interfere with our operations.

On behalf of the responding services, we will endeavour to respond to your request as soon as reasonably practicable.

You have the right to seek an investigation by the Ombudsman of this decision. Information about how to make a complaint is available at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or free phone 0800 802 602.

On behalf of Nelson Marlborough District Health Board | Private Bag 18 | Nelson 7040

DISCLAIMER: This electronic message together with any attachments is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, do not copy, disclose or use the contents in any way.
Please also advise us by return e-mail that you have received the message and then please destroy. NMDHB is not responsible for any changes made to this message and / or any attachments after sending by NMDHB. We use virus scanning software but exclude all liability for viruses or anything similar in this email or any attachment.

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From: OIA Request NMDHB
Nelson Marlborough District Health Board


Attachment OIA 12350 Response NMDHB Gender affirming availability.pdf
682K Download View as HTML


Please find attached the Nelson Marlborough DHB response to your Official Information request regarding gender-affirming healthcare availability.

Nelson Marlborough District Health Board | Private Bag 18 | Nelson 7040

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