Happy Pride! Wait, — why should I care, as your doctor, who you love? How you identify? One – very wrong answer – is that I shouldn’t care at all. And if you are LGBTQIA+ –this is really important thing to talk about.
Here are just a few reasons why I ask who my patients love and how they identify.
Based on multiple studies in Ireland in past decade, those in LGTBQIA+ have :
◆ higher rates of substance use
◆ higher rates of obesity and eating disorders.
◆ higher rates of depression, anxiety and self harm
◆ Lesbian/Bisexual Women: have a higher incidence of heart disease, PCOS, and ovarian cancer. They are less likely to access women’s health services or seek care STIs.
◆Barriers to accessing assisted reproduction services.
◆ Gay, Bisexual Men, MSM: homophobic abuse, violence, stress, STIs
◆ Transgender people: Slower to engage with all health services.
◆ Older LGBTQIA+ people: invisibility, isolation and loneliness. Lack of recognition of partners. Difficulties expressing bereavement.
◆ Ethnic and cultural minorities and those with disability face : health problems resulting from double discrimination
◆ Parenting, fostering and adoption: difficulties accessing health services for LGBTQIA+ people and their children resulting for many reasons, including distress associated with stigma of their families in some communities
The last factor is medical professionals themselves. When I started medical school, HIV was not preventable or treatable in the way it is now. (It is now possible to give medication to prevent HIV or if infected, to make the viral load undetectable and untransmissable! “U=U”) For example, I was not taught the unique problems faced by transgender men, such as increased risk of sleep apnoea after hormone therapy or specific health complications from binders. The challenge to upskill and stay up-to-date is real in medicine is constant and real in every area – but if we should be committed to health that looks after people as the individuals they are.
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