Chairman of The Royal Children’s Hospital, The Hon Rob Knowles AO and CEO John Stanway have issued a statement in response to The Royal Australasian College of Physicians’ position on the treatment of gender dysphoria in children and young people.

The College has called on the Government to increase the availability of gender services for young people and said improving access to expert clinical care should be a national priority.

In its public statement, the College said: “The RACP strongly supports expert clinical care that is non-judgmental, supportive and welcoming for children, adolescents and their families experiencing gender dysphoria. Withholding or limiting access to care and treatment would be unethical and would have serious impacts on the health and wellbeing of young people.”

The Royal Children’s Hospital welcomes this position from the RACP.

Most significantly, we applaud the College’s stance in validating the work of Associate Professor Michelle Telfer and her colleagues nationally by calling on the Government to work with these experts to develop evidence-based fact sheets for patients and families.

We restate our earlier public support of the RCH Gender Service and we maintain our commitment to delivering great care to our patients, to transparency, continuous quality improvement and our pursuit of clinical excellence.

You can read the College’s statement  along with a copy of their advice to Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt here.

Read the full statement by The Hon Rob Knowles AO and CEO John Stanway here.