Chennai: For the first time in the country, a hospital will have a full-fledged wing to attend to the healthcare requirements of persons of the ‘third gender’. The distinction will be that of the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai, better known simply as GH. In fact, the expensive sex-change surgery also would be performed on transgender persons who seek it free of cost, provided they have approval from their parents. A team of specialists from various fields would perform sex reassignment surgery in the hospital free of cost.
Health Minister C Vijayabaskar inaugurated the Gender Guidance Clinic and Multi-Specialty Clinic for Transgender in RGGG hospital on Monday. The clinic would attend to the health care needs of the transgender on all days. The sex-change surgery would be performed every Friday between 9 am and 1 pm. Since 2016, specialists in the hospital have performed sex change operations on 17 transsexuals.
The government has set up the necessary infrastructure at a cost of `1.34 crore and it also plans to improve the facilities in the clinic soon. All the health care of third gender would be attended to under the one roof in the hospital.
It may be noted that ten years ago for the first time free sex-operation was done on a transgender at the RGGG hospital in May 2009. In the past the third gender relied on quacks for sex-change operation and many headed to Mumbai. As a result, some of them became victims of crude surgeries and many developed complications. Such nightmares would be a thing of the past after the establishment of the exclusive clinic for the Third Gender in RGG hospital in Chennai.
