Published 10 March 2023 at 09.47
Domestic. The number of people who believe they were born with the wrong gender has exploded, especially among girls and young women with mental health problems who move in left-wing circles. Now the committee for national highly specialized care has made a unique decision about where care for gender dysphoria should be provided.
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It is an unusual decision that the committee has made within the system for national highly specialized care. The National Board of Health and Welfare has previously decided that care for gender dysphoria should be conducted as national highly specialized care and based on three units.
However, the review group that has analyzed the permit applications from the regions has assessed that none of the applicant units alone has the capacity to perform all the care within the permit decision and fulfill the conditions set. Therefore, a solution based on cooperation between several regions has been advocated.
The board for national highly specialized care has now decided that the three units that receive permission to provide certain care in the case of gender dysphoria must cooperate with three additional units related to care.
– The purpose is to ensure accessibility to care in this way. This concerns care for a patient group that has grown in number over time, and where a central issue is accessibility at every step of the care chain, says Kristina Wikner, head of unit at the National Board of Health and Welfare.
In the decision there are specific conditions for the permits and among other things include that the units must be able to cooperate regarding waiting times nationally.
The three units that receive permission to provide national highly specialized care for gender dysphoria, including gender confirmation surgery, are the Stockholm Region, the Östergötland Region and the Västra Götaland Region. They will in turn cooperate in pairs with Region Uppsala, Region Skåne and Region Västerbotten.
– Gender dysphoria is an area of care that is in great need of structure, research, more knowledge and follow-up. It is something that also emerged in our work to update the knowledge support in the area. With this concentration, we provide better conditions for research and development and for investigation, treatment and follow-up to take place equally in Sweden, says Thomas Lindén, head of department at the National Board of Health and Welfare, in a press release.
He continues:
– The goal is better patient benefit, that the patient receives good treatment and a clear care plan going forward. The decision will also provide better conditions for competence provision and collaboration between the experts needed in several areas, for example in psychiatry, endocrinology, plastic surgery, urology and speech therapy.
The transition to national highly specialized care takes place according to the decision on 1 January 2024.