Last night Christine Burns posted a few links on Facebook that illustrate the institutional issues surrounding discrimination in the NHS (and, of course, the media).
First up we have a horrifying story of a Polish doctor who was eventually awarded £4.5m after a sustained campaign of bullying and manufactured disciplinary complaints against her. The treatment that Dr. Michalak suffered is far worse than that being suffered by Dr. Curtis, although of course the consequences for patients are far less.
Secondly, for an example of the sort of thing you can get away with if you are white and male (and your patients are women), here’s a BBC report on a doctor from Cornwall who was allowed to continue in practice despite 12 investigations into his competence and numerous botched operations. Is this the sort of thing that David Batty might report on? Apparently not, Mr. Batty is only interested in allegations of medical malpractice if they can be used to help deny treatment to trans people.
And finally, if you are on Twitter, take a look at the #TransDocFail hashtag, which started earlier today. It contains a massive and damning collection of stories about how trans people are denied treatment, lied to, and abused by NHS staff. Next time someone asks what is meant by “institutionally transphobic”, all I need to do is point them to that.