Call for Investigation into Irish Children sent to Tavistock Clinic

๐…๐จ๐ซ๐ฆ๐ž๐ซ ๐‰๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ญ๐ข๐œ๐ž ๐Œ๐ข๐ง๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐ž๐ซ ๐‚๐ก๐š๐ซ๐ฅ๐ข๐ž ๐…๐ฅ๐š๐ง๐š๐ ๐š๐ง ๐ก๐š๐ฌ ๐œ๐š๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ž๐ ๐จ๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐ž ๐‡๐ž๐š๐ฅ๐ญ๐ก ๐Œ๐ข๐ง๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐ž๐ซ ๐’๐ญ๐ž๐ฉ๐ก๐ž๐ง ๐ƒ๐จ๐ง๐ง๐ž๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐ญ๐จ ๐ž๐ฌ๐ญ๐š๐›๐ฅ๐ข๐ฌ๐ก ๐š๐ง ๐ข๐ง๐๐ž๐ฉ๐ž๐ง๐๐ž๐ง๐ญ ๐ข๐ง๐ช๐ฎ๐ข๐ซ๐ฒ ๐ข๐ง๐ญ๐จ ๐ญ๐ก๐ž ๐ซ๐ž๐Ÿ๐ž๐ซ๐ซ๐š๐ฅ ๐จ๐Ÿ ๐Ÿ๐Ÿ’๐ŸŽ ๐ˆ๐ซ๐ข๐ฌ๐ก ๐œ๐ก๐ข๐ฅ๐๐ซ๐ž๐ง, ๐ฌ๐จ๐ฆ๐ž ๐š๐ฌ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ๐ง๐  ๐š๐ฌ ๐Ÿ• ๐ฒ๐ž๐š๐ซ๐ฌ ๐จ๐ฅ๐ ๐ญ๐จ ๐ญ๐ก๐ž ๐ง๐จ๐ฐ ๐๐ข๐ฌ๐œ๐ซ๐ž๐๐ข๐ญ๐ž๐ ๐“๐š๐ฏ๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐จ๐œ๐ค ๐œ๐ฅ๐ข๐ง๐ข๐œ ๐ข๐ง ๐‹๐จ๐ง๐๐จ๐ง.
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Tavistock was told to shut down GIDS (Gender Identity Development Service) last year after an independent review led by Dr Hilary Cass concluded that young people were left at โ€œconsiderable riskโ€ of poor mental health and distress. A Care Quality Commission report had rated the service โ€œinadequateโ€.
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Irish Children as young as 7-years old were referred to Tavistock clinic in London, described on the front page of today’s Irish Times as a scandal ‘on par with East Germany’s doping of Athletes’.
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A front page report in the Sunday Times by Glen Keogh says more than 1,000 children, some as young as three years old were referred for puberty blockers to the now discredited Tavistock clinic in London where concerns were ignored to preserve a โ€œgold dustโ€ NHS contract.
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This revelation is contained in ๐‘‡๐‘–๐‘š๐‘’ ๐‘ก๐‘œ ๐‘‡โ„Ž๐‘–๐‘›๐‘˜: ๐‘‡โ„Ž๐‘’ ๐ผ๐‘›๐‘ ๐‘–๐‘‘๐‘’ ๐‘†๐‘ก๐‘œ๐‘Ÿ๐‘ฆ ๐‘œ๐‘“ ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘’ ๐ถ๐‘œ๐‘™๐‘™๐‘Ž๐‘๐‘ ๐‘’ ๐‘œ๐‘“ ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘’ ๐‘‡๐‘Ž๐‘ฃ๐‘–๐‘ ๐‘ก๐‘œ๐‘๐‘˜โ€™๐‘  ๐บ๐‘’๐‘›๐‘‘๐‘’๐‘Ÿ ๐‘†๐‘’๐‘Ÿ๐‘ฃ๐‘–๐‘๐‘’ ๐‘“๐‘œ๐‘Ÿ ๐ถโ„Ž๐‘–๐‘™๐‘‘๐‘Ÿ๐‘’๐‘› by BBC Newsnight journalist Hannah Barnes, to be published this month and serialised in The Sunday Times Magazine.
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Barnes spoke to dozens of clinicians who worked at l Gids, part of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust. She also spoke to children and their parents who used Gids.
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The book claims that more than a third of young people referred to the service had moderate to severe autistic traits, compared with fewer than 2 percent in the general population. Some identified not just as a different gender, but a different ethnic background.
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One young person had โ€œthree different alter egosโ€.
Children as young as three, already living as the opposite gender with a changed name, appearance and pronouns, were referred to the service.
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Former therapists involved in prescribing puberty blockers now admit they donโ€™t know โ€œhow many children [have since] changed their mindโ€ on transitioning.
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In her first interview since winning an employment tribunal case after she raised safety concerns, the trustโ€™s head of safeguarding, Sonia Appleby, said anyone who spoke out was โ€œdemonisedโ€.
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Dr Anna Hutchinson, a senior clinical psychologist at Gids, said puberty-blockers were supposed to be prescribed to children to give them โ€œtime to thinkโ€ about whether they wanted to transition fully, but almost all went on to take cross-sex hormones, which have irreversible consequences.
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February 2019, a 54-page report compiled by Dr David Bell, then a consultant psychiatrist at the trust and the staff governor, was leaked to The Sunday Times.
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Dr Bell said Gids was providing โ€œwoefully inadequateโ€ care to its patients and that its own staff had โ€œethical concernsโ€ about some of the serviceโ€™s practices, such as giving โ€œhighly disturbed and distressedโ€ children access to puberty blockers.
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Gids, he concluded, โ€œis not fit for purposeโ€. Many of Bellโ€™s concerns had been expressed 13 years earlier in a 2006 report on Gids completed by Dr David Taylor โ€” then the trustโ€™s medical director โ€” who described the long-term effects of puberty blockers as โ€œuntested and unresearchedโ€.
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In the Irish edition of the Sunday Times, Patrick O Donoghue reports The author, Hannah Barnes, a BBC journalist, devoted a chapter to Irelandโ€™s care model that Hannah Barnes interviewed Dr Paul Moran and Professor Donal Oโ€™Shea, clinicians at the National Gender Service (NGS), who fear that children have transitioned unsafely and too quickly.
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They became alarmed when it was discovered that in many cases CHI Crumlin did not hold the childrenโ€™s records.
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Several of the children referred to the Tavistock clinic had severe autism or problems such as non-attendance at school or mental health issues, or they had experienced homophobia.
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Highlighting the โ€œred flagsโ€, Oโ€™Shea said life-changing decisions had been rushed. โ€œThe social situation was so chaotic that the idea that you would just jump in with hormones and start treating, without social work input, without liaising with the school, the key worker, you know, it was clearly potty,โ€ he said.
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Oโ€™Shea added: โ€œIt is likely we will encounter significant levels of regret and other adverse outcomes in the Crumlin legacy group which will be difficult to defend.โ€
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Dr Moran said that the concerns that he raised were ignored by the Irish health authorities involved.
Colm Keena reported yesterday in the Irish Times that a โ€œconstructive and informative discussionโ€ was held in Dublin on Thursday with Dr Hilary Cass and a wide range of stakeholders from the Department of Health, the HSE, and services providers.
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The Irish gender identity service for young people is based in the childrenโ€™s hospital in Crumlin, Dublin. The service is now looking for alternatives given that it can no longer refer children to Tavistock.
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Psychiatrist Dr Paul Moran and endocrinologist Prof Donal Oโ€™Shea, of the adult gender service in St Columcilleโ€™s, Dublin, have long been highly critical of the quality of the work done by Tavistock on patients of the Irish child and adolescent service.
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However, Dr Siobhรกn Nรญ Bhriain, the HSEโ€™s national lead for integrated care, said in August of last year that the Tavistock Clinic was safe, and that if it had been deemed unsafe it would have been closed immediately rather than let continue for another year.
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Tavistock saw 107 Irish patients in the period from 2012 to January 2023, according to figures from the London clinic. The youngest Irish children seen were three girls aged seven at the time of their first appointment.
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A report by Paul Cullen in the Irish Times last August said 238 young people in Ireland had been referred to Tavistock between 2011 and 2021, including 17 in the first five months of 2022.
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Cullen also reported that psychiatrist, Dr Paul Moran, who works in the NGS at St Columcilleโ€™s Hospital, Loughlinstown, had earlier criticised the Tavistock clinic in 2020.
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In internal emails, he said he felt the service was โ€œnot capable of adequate assessment of suitability and readiness for hormone treatments or surgeryโ€.
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The HSE told the Irish Times last August 11 children in Ireland are currently on puberty blocker and cross-sex hormones, prescribed by their clinicians in Ireland.
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It says it has never received any complaints about the services provided by Tavistock to Irish patients.