Professor Angus Dalgleish This lunatic travesty is a symptom of the madness gripping NHS
ThE latest gender dogma that demands men undergoing X-rays must fill in forms to determine whether they could be pregnant is a lunatic travesty.
The policy, which applies to all patients aged 12 to 55, whether female or not, offers absolutely no clinical benefit.
Worse, it damages public faith in doctors. It wastes valuable time and resources, and it risks alienating patients so deeply that some will opt not to have treatment.
This policy, introduced in the name of ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’, is a symptom of the madness that grips not only our health service but all public bodies and many large corporations.
The difference is that, if a civil servant takes umbrage at being asked to ‘declare his pronouns’ and storms out of a meeting, he won’t be missing a consultation or clinical examination that might save his life.
You don’t need a medical degree to understand that any woman of potentially fertile age needs to be asked, in a sensitive and respectful way, whether there’s any chance that she might be pregnant before an X-ray or similar treatment, such as a CT scan. Radiation from these procedures can be dangerous to foetuses.
This practice applies even to girls well below the age of consent, when the question must be put with the utmost delicacy and compassion. But there’s nothing delicate or compassionate about asking invasive questions of patients who are likely to be suffering some distress. That’s worse than humiliating.
For the vast majority of people, being asked your preferred pronouns, as the new guidelines dictate, is an absurd exercise with no place in a medical setting.
The people I see as a cancer specialist are invariably facing diagnoses and treatment that could affect their lives radically.
I have deep sympathy for the middle-aged man on a fast-track cancer pathway who was reportedly so upset at being asked whether he was pregnant that he walked out of a consultation. As a result, he was unable to have a crucial scan.
No doubt, as well as feeling profoundly insulted, he decided that any doctor who imagined he might possess ovaries and a womb would be incapable of treating his cancer. The Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) officers that push similar policies on the health service are on salaries that are an insult to far more qualified, able and hardworking colleagues.
I shudder to think how a dedicated nurse or junior doctor, earning perhaps £30,000 annually, feels to see DEI hires on £70,000 a year foisting such absurd diktats upon the health service.
DEI is patently a selfserving scam, leaching untold millions from the NhS budget. The people who get these posts often have little or no medical experience, but they are well versed in ticking the right boxes – and ensuring that everyone else ticks them too.
What was once mere nonsense has become far more insidious, an exercise in indoctrination.
The aim of the DEI industry is to flood the health service with these practices, so that it becomes normalised. Already, regular patients have learned to expect they will be asked idiotic questions about sex and gender identity, not just once but on every visit.
Outright misinformation is imposed: for instance, the latest guidelines claim that up to 4.5 per cent of British people identify as trans or non-binary, when census data from the Office of National Statistics puts the actual figure at around 0.5 per cent.
One glimmer of hope is that not all hospitals have adopted this guidance, and health Secretary Wes Streeting has hinted he shares the widespread concerns over rampant DEI. he had better act quickly, because good medicine can’t exist alongside bad medical practice.
Angus Dalgleish is emeritus professor of oncology at St George’s, London