March 29, 2022
-Toronto Sun
What to expect when you’re expecting? Not this.
Aside from the standard questions, men in England who require medical scans are now being asked if they are pregnant.
The Walton Centre National Health Service Foundation Trust in Liverpool is just one of a handful of National Health Service trusts that asks “all patients under the age of 60, regardless of how you may identify your gender,” the Daily Telegraph reported.
The amendment comes after the NHS was slammed for “prioritizing gender over sex in order to be inclusive of trans people, including on single-sex wards,” according to the paper.
The wife of a cancer patient said the “unfair” question caused “unnecessary confusion and agitation” for her husband, who was already emotional from brain surgery and the steroids in his system.
“This was very confusing for him in his post-surgical daze, his vulnerability and needs completely ignored,” she said.
The regulations regarding procedures were actually updated in 2017, where the wording from the Department of Health changed from “females of childbearing age” to “individuals of childbearing potential.”
However, what appears to be new is medical staff posing the question to everyone who is having a procedure involving radiotherapy, diagnostic imaging, and nuclear medicine. Those procedures pose a risk to unborn children.
A spokesperson for The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust said: “We believe asking all people who are having their abdomen imaged/scanned in this way, regardless of gender, is the least intrusive way of ensuring it is safe to proceed.”
