Australia’s major children’s hospitals have distanced themselves from the growing questions over the prescription of hormone drugs to children in the wake of a ban by UK health authorities on the routine prescription of puberty blockers to young teenagers.
The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne – despite being the setters of quasi-national standards of care that incorporate the prescription of hormone blocker drugs to children in the early stages of puberty – refused to respond to the English National Health Service’s move to restrict the prescription of puberty blockers to clinical trials, the move mirroring growing doubts over the safety and clinical effectiveness of the hormone drugs in a host of European countries.
The RCH had no response to the development when asked, but the Premier’s department said via a spokesperson that it backed the gender service’s model of care absolutely.
Queensland health minister Shannon Fentiman also declined to engage with the questions raised by the NHS ban, issuing a statement saying that the Queensland Children’s Gender Service – which is currently under review – “is considered one of the best in the country, based on the best available evidence”.
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