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Cover sex-reassignment surgery: activists

What's paid for under Manitoba rules

By: Arielle Godbout

Posted: 08/5/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Manitoba's transgendered community has been petitioning the provincial government to cover the full cost of surgery for those who want to live as a member of the opposite sex, Healthy Living Minister Kerri Irvin-Ross confirmed Tuesday.

"It's been identified that (funding for sex-reassignment surgery) is something we should consider," she said.

Those eligible for sex-reassignment surgery have been diagnosed with gender identity disorder, a condition recognized by the World Health Organization. Those with gender identity disorder have a desire to live as a member of the opposite sex, often accompanied with an intense discomfort with their own anatomy.

Currently, Manitoba covers surgeries that are performed in the province, and will partially pay for out-of-province vaginoplasty, a procedure that constructs a vagina for male-to-female patients.

But a number of services and surgeries aren't covered, including phalloplasty, a surgery that constructs a penis for female-to-male patients.

Transgendered issues fall into the province's Healthy Sexuality strategy, which covers everything from teen pregnancy to HIV prevention, said Irvin-Ross.

"The transgendered population is one group of that broader strategy, and people have informed me of issues that they face," she said. Government funding for surgery is a top concern, she added.

But Irvin-Ross wouldn't say whether the expansion of services for transgendered Manitobans was on the horizon.

"It's the economic downturn that's happened in the country and impacts our province. Now we have to watch how we'll make our expenditures," she explained.

In November, Irvin-Ross travelled to Montreal to tour the Centre Métropolitain de Chirurgie Plastique, a world-renowned facility.

The purpose was to research what has made the Montreal centre so successful, including its counselling services, and how those lessons could be applied to a "made-in-Manitoba" solution.

Frances Ennis, who transitioned from male to female about a year ago, said she spent $30,000 out of her retirement fund to pay for reassignment surgery.

And, Ennis added, she only opted for the "bare minimum" in terms of the available surgery. "You have to be fairly fortunate to be able to afford it," she said.

Ennis said the transgendered community would continue to lobby the government to cover sex-reassignment surgery, which she said is a necessary procedure for those with gender identity disorder.

"We're responding to this as a community, instead of as individuals," she said.

Alberta recently announced it would no longer cover sex-reassignment surgery as a cost-cutting measure, though only last year Ontario re-listed the surgery as an insured procedure.

Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Saskatchewan and British Columbia also at least partially cover sex-reassignment surgery, as long as the patient has been recommended for the procedure by an appropriate doctor.

arielle.godbout@freepress.mb.ca

MANITOBA will cover the costs for some sex-reassignment surgeries when the procedure has been recommended by a recognized gender-identity clinic, usually the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto. The province will provide a travel subsidy and pay for the CAMH assessment. With a CAMH recommendation, Manitoba Health will cover the following, locally performed, procedures:

Orchidodectomy (removal of the scrotum)

Penectomy (removal of the penis)

Mastectomy

Hysterectomy

Oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries)

Vaginoplasty, the construction of a vagina, is also listed as an insured service but is not locally provided. Manitoba Health will provide a surgical benefit and benefits for the assistant surgeon and anaesthetist based on the time duration of a vagioplasty procedure along with the patient's travel costs when performed in Canada.

-- Source: Manitoba Healthy Living

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 5, 2009 A7

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