On the 23rd November my primary care provider, which is now Cheshire and Merseyside Gender Identity Clinic requested that the gender marker be changed on my medical records to Ms.

Grea, I hear most of you cry.

Yes, great but it has caused me a massive issue in December and January when I went to get bloody tests done.

My prescribing clinic, Gender GP, sent a request to my doctor’s on 23rd December, who then put a request into the NHS. This was rejected because I did not have an active NHS number.

My NHS number was in limbo land.

My doctors tell me because I haven’t had a new NHS number they cannot check my bloods until a new NHS number has been assigned.

I don’t know where the numbers are assigned from or if my doctors are telling the truth anymore as I really don’t believe a word they say these days.

They also told me they can’t use my old NHS number and that I need to wait for the new number to be generated by the NHS system.

I am being told this while I am stood in the reception area of my doctors surgery and the receptionist is getting really agitated because I am questioning this time and time again and she is definitely trying to get rid of me.

I need a blood test so I can get my prescription drugs but no blood test equals no drugs and I only have 7 days of these left!

Eventually the receptionist gets to the point where she asks me to leave and I refuse and ask to speak to the practise manager. She calls the practise manager.

When she arrives, she knows exactly who I am, because I had a full blown meltdown in September last year when they hadn’t actioned my deed poll name change, despite having had several emails and copies of my deed poll hand delivered to reception.

I explain the situation and she agrees with the receptionist that there is nothing they can do.

I explain that yet again I am sat in the surgery dealing with either piss poor management, petty bureaucracy or a failure of their systems.

Again she states I must wait for my new NHS number to come through before I can get a blood test form.

She says she will go speak to the head doctor and see what she can do.

To my surprise she comes back with blood test form with my old NHS number on it.

So if you can do this why am I sitting in reception almost close to tears????

I am honestly shocked at how pathetic the service is. How can they suddenly do something they said just minutes ago could not be done.

I can now go get my bloods done and get my prescription.

To my surprise she texted me not more than a few hours later with my new NHS number!!!

Where did this suddenly come from?

What was I waiting for if they can generate one within a few hours?

If I had not gone into the surgery and made a scene would I still be waiting? Would I now have run out of prescription drugs? Drugs which, by the way, I cannot suddenly stop taking?

So, I have a new NHS number but need to wait for it to become active and all the details from my old NHS record to be carried over, and that’s my doctors job to do.

The post NHS medical number issues appeared first on Official website of Mikki Tiamo.

Following on from last week when my care provider, Gender GP, requested that I have a blood test to swap the prescription drugs that I am on, they sent a request to my doctors.

I even went into the doctor’s surgery to confirm that they had received the said email, but alas by Wednesday I had heard nothing from my doctors so I contacted Gender GP again to organise a private blood test and copied my doctor into the e-mail and voice my displeasure.

Of course, Gender GP responded very quickly but my doctors waited nearly all day before calling me to say that they had organised a blood test request form on Monday however they had failed to let me know, sighting that they assumed I would know.

Not only am I a medical outcast, because I use a private service
who prescribe my drugs because the NHS won’t,
but I’m also now supposed to be a fucking clairvoyant?!?

You honestly couldn’t make this stuff up and this is why I am getting increasingly pissed off with my doctors and am now actively seeking another surgery because of the way they deal with me.

If I ran my business the same way that they run their practice and treated my customers in the manner, I wouldn’t have a business in a very short period of time.

So they’ve requested the blood test for me but neglected to let me know! Do I then need to hold a séance each time I contact you?

No text message, no e-mail, no phone call (well not until I emailed them), and then it took an e-mail from me to my care provider for them to actually phone me by which time I had organised a private blood test.

I am going to complain to the General Medical Council because I am getting increasingly pissed off with the way that they are treating me because I want to find out why there is such poor treatment.

• Is it because I’m using a private care provider for my prescriptions?
• Is it because I’m transgender and they don’t want to deal with me?
• Or is it because the staff there just don’t give a toss?

Answers on a postcard, please!

I have actually emailed the surgery back to voice my concerns and they deemed to send me a text message, a screenshot of which is the opposite, instead of replying to my email! Probably because they know how angry I am at present!

As you can see they thought that I was doing something which I know nothing about!

Nobody has told me that I can self-refer, again lack of communication.

They didn’t even deem to put the web address in the text message they sent me which means I have to go and find this website!

Yet again dealing with my doctors leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth!

I really wonder if they are inept, stupid, or just don’t care!

The post Inept, Stupid or Just dont give a shit. Doctors Again!! appeared first on Official website of Mikki Tiamo.

Well this month because of the Synarel shortages I have to change the drugs the I take and this is required a request going into my doctors for a blood test.

To give you an idea of how slow the NHS work, my Synarel will run out in just over a weeks time, and they received a blood test request on Friday the 24th of February and as yet I have heard nothing from my doctors.

I know that they have received the e-mail from Gender GP because I actually went down to the surgery with a printed copy to hand over to reception and was told they had already received a request from Gender GP. However on past issues they have told me that they have had emails from myself and third parties in the past and it turns out that this was bullshit!

So yet again I am waiting for my GP two actually approve a blood test so I think the best course of action is to go and book a blood test tomorrow and pay for this out of my own pocket.

If I go and have a blood test tomorrow privately I will have the results on Friday however because my doctors have agreed to do shared healthcare I’ve been asking questions as to whether or not this will affect the situation between Gender GP and my doctors and myself but wondering if I should actually care about this and care more about my own healthcare and sanity!?

Its not that I really give a shit about this anymore because I’m just sick of dealing with people who’s attitude towards my healthcare is 1,000,000,000 miles away from the private healthcare clinic I use and my own expectations.

I have actually thought about naming the doctors surgery however I will give them the benefit of the doubt one last time before I start shouting their name as a poor gender care provider!

I should mention as well but this is the doctors surgery which took 2 1/2 years to change the name on my NHS records despite having numerous copies of my deed pool hand delivered and sent via e-mail, all of which they said they did not receive despite me providing evidence to the contrary.

As I said, this is either incompetence, bullshit service or my doctors are transphobic? Which is it?

The post Dealing with the Doctors again, again. Slow NHS service appeared first on Official website of Mikki Tiamo.

Yes, folks. I haven’t burdened the NHS with my transition. I’ve paid for everything.

As many of you will know I’m on the waiting list to see the gender clinic and was referred by my GP in early 2020. The particular gender clinic I was referred to is currently seeing people who were referred in 2018 which means the likelihood of me being seen by the gender clinic before 2025 is highly unlikely.

The waiting list for gender clinics is also getting longer and longer every year and some people may think that there are more and more people being referred but this isn’t true and if it was its only part of the story.

The way the gender clinic works is there not just seeing a person once and then passing them onto to another person within the NHS, the aim is to build a rapport with the patient before recommending what course of treatment they require. Be this projection from the service, hormone replacement therapy or even surgery.

Time between the first appointment and the second appointment maybe many many months.

This means that processing of patients is extremely slow, more so if the referred patient is under the age of 18.

However, anyone under the age of 18 is usually referred to a specialist clinic.

And the service is about to be put under more pressure…

The system is about to be put under more pressure as this specialist clinic for children is due to close this year, 2023.

The reasons sighted for its closure is as follows:

“An independent review condemned the clinic as “not a safe or viable long-term option” because its interventions are based on poor evidence and its model of care leaves young people “at considerable risk” of poor mental health. The clinic must close by Spring 2023.”

More information about this closure can be found at this website: UK Shuts down worlds biggest gender clinic for kids.

In reality the closure of this clinic is just going to put more stress on the other clinics who will be required to take up the slack of this now closing clinic.

There are supposed to be three new clinics built but as yet, nothing.

This is just my personal opinion, but I would love to know what goes on in the psyche of NHS management that close parts of its service when the standard of care falls below that which is required instead of fixing this failure within that service?

Perhaps somebody can tell me why?

So, we have a service in which waiting lists exceed the 18 weeks set out by the NHS, clinics not fit for purpose, clinics closing and their replacements nowhere to be seen plus a government whose anti trans rhetoric and policies mean services aren’t going to get better anytime soon.

Some might even say the Tories policies towards the trans community might even be more aligned with those of a German government of the 1930’s and 40’s!

So, the choice of whether to wait for the NHS and its failing level of care or go private is one you need to consider.

Going private costs roughly £100 per month (this includes prescription charges) whereas going to the NHS would no doubt cost me my sanity and my mental health.

The dealings I have had with the NHS so far have all been negative and dealing with my GP has been an absolute nightmare.

The private service I use by comparison is helpful, attentive, and available to discuss and answer questions.

My GP took over 2 years to change my name on my records despite many requests to do so.

I have no issues recommending my private health care provider, but my GPs would not work with them. This situation is slightly better but not even remotely helpful.

Other things to think about is your prescriptions as a private clinic will prescribe after consultations whereas the NHS will not prescribe until you have seen the specialists at their clinics which might be 4/5 years away.

CAN YOU AFFORD TO WAIT THIS LONG?

I am not saying the NHS route isn’t good, I have fuck all experience of it because of waiting times but I have friends who have good experiences. By contrast the majority of my trans friends have used a private service at some point in their transition.

I’ve made my mind up to start on the private clinic route until the NHS deems it time for me to be seen by the NHS consultant. By which time I will probably be 4 to 5 years further down the road than if I had just waited to solely see the NHS!

As the old saying goes, you get what you pay for!

You seriously need to weight up the pros and cons and if you think the NHS is the way you need to go, go that way. Otherwise, do you go with a commercial clinic?

The choice is yours….

Give me your thoughts in the comments section below.

The post Gender clinic waiting times and taking things into your own hands appeared first on Official website of Mikki Tiamo.

The post was originally placed on the Facebook group, Transgender UK (Support Group).

Posted on 10th December 2022.

So, I’m normally not the person to come running to Facebook to complain but this time I am.

To clarify this isn’t a post to get sympathy but to educate people on how transgender people are treated in this country and by the healthcare system.

So, for anyone who doesn’t know, if you change your gender identity in the UK, the healthcare system has no way of changing your gender on your medical records. (Your medical records are also your gender (how you identify) and not your sex (what you were born at birth)) So if you change your gender identity, you have to get a new NHS number with your new Gender Marker. This alone causes issues for transgender people when going to any form of doctor’s appointment given that your doctor has no way of knowing you are transgender and what parts of a human body you do or don’t have.

For me getting my new NHS number happened in Summer. When the process got started I asked my doctor “does everything get transferred over” and I got told “yes everything stays exactly the same but on the new number and just the gender will change”

Fast forward a few months and I have my new number. Early November I find out that to fly to America by passport and covid vaccine pass need to match, which they don’t. I go to the doctors ask them to make them match up for my trip there and no problem they do it.

When getting my paperwork sorted for the trip I go to get my covid-19 vaccine pass. ‘No Covid 19 Record’. I call up the 119 explain I’m trans, explain my name situation, get told “it’s just your change of name it’ll update soon”. I call nearly everyday for two weeks to be told exactly the same thing. Until yesterday when I called and I got told “actually it’s because your vaccines aren’t in your medical record as vaccinations. They are in there on my recent medications but in the wrong place. They gave my number to the covid vaccine records people and I get told I’ll get a call.
Last night I get a phone call, which credit to them was very fast callback time, I get asked what my problem is. I explain.

“I’m sorry we don’t have a solution for transgender people”

He went on to explain that they can’t give me a covid pass because they can’t be sure it’s me. The same person from my past NHS number. (Set aside the fact the name, DOB, address, GP and contact info is all identical but carry on)

“There’s nothing we can do to provide transgender people with proof of vaccination. If you call back in 6-8 weeks we can let you know if we are any closer to a solution”
So 8 days before I fly to America and this is where I am.

I have gotten myself a doctors note signed to say I’m vaccinated however there is no physical way that I can get the universal pass that everyone in the UK gets.

The government can say all they want that there’s no discrimination in the healthcare system but they’d be wrong. Because this is not fair.

If anyone does happen to work for the NHS or the airport, and has any form of advice on how I can make sure I’m let onto my plane then it would be greatly appreciated.

I’ll end saying that this isn’t a personal attack ok anyone working for/with the nhs, I understand and agree their staff are overworked and underpaid and I am so thankful for all NHS staff and the service we have for free in this country. However, this is about the bigger picture than that.

Analysis

My initial thought when I heard this was, “Oh my god” and “that’s not good”. Followed by “Is that going to happen to my records as well?”

To be honest it has shocked me a little, especially as I have a pre-existing medical condition!

I ended up chatting with some of my friends about this and two of them have already changed their gender on the NHS records and they’ve had similar issues with their past details not being transferred.

This does not bode well in my mind’s eye!

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