Dear Jennifer Shields

Thank you for your request for official information, received by the
Ministry of Health on 24 September 2015, requesting:

I am enquiring about the state of the process of finding an overseas
provider for MtF Gender Reassignment Surgery. In your recent response to
A.D. Tait you released an email from Ailsa Jacobson which stated "We
should be able to send the first of the W/L away to preferred provider
this year" but A.D. Tait's request scope included all correspondence with
potential overseas preferred providers, and your response included only
one, in Australia, who in his response to the same Ms Jacobson stated "I
currently only see FtM but am interested in extending this service to MtF
patients at a later stage". This surgeon did not provide any detail as to
experience with MtF GRS and provided no detail as to which procedure he
would perform or the cost of treatment for MtF, indicating he would not be
an ideal provider.

Does the Ministry still intend to go ahead with this provider? How can
that be justified when he is currently not performing MtF GRS procedures
and how does this fit with Ms Jacobson's "this year" timeline?

Your request has been received and logged.  As required under the Official
Information Act 1982, the Ministry will respond to your request within 20
working days.  You should receive a response on or before 22 October 2015.

If a large amount of information has been requested or if the Ministry
needs to consult in order to make a decision, we may need to extend this
date (this is provided for in section 15A of the Act).  We will advise you
if such an extension is necessary.

The Ministry's reference number for your request is: H201504531

Yours sincerely
 
Ashley Goodwin
OIA Co-ordinator l Government Relations l Office of the Director General

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Dear Ms Shields

Please find attached a letter of response to your request for Official
Information.

Regards
Don

Dr Don Mackie
Chief Medical Officer
Clinical Leadership, Protection & Regulation
Ministry of Health
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attachments may contain information that is IN-CONFIDENCE and subject to
legal privilege.
If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate,
distribute or copy this message or attachments.
If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender
immediately and delete this message.
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