Are Transgender Patients Neglected in Emergency Departments? Study

A recent report shows that many transgender patients have negative experiences in the hospital emergency department as they may not be treated fairly. 

According to researchers from Western University who studied 408 transgender individuals in Ontario, Canada, they found that 214 of the participants were female-to-male and 195 were male-to-female.

Findings also revealed that more than one in five transgender people reported that they were avoided in the emergency department to a potential medical emergency as they feared of separate issues.

To add to that, more than half of those who did got to the emergency room said they experienced at least one discriminatory experience, including having a doctor refuse care all together.

Thirty-two percent of respondents even said that they had experienced hurtful or insulting language, while 31 percent were told by a healthcare provider that they didn't know enough to help them.

"As far as we're aware, this paper represents the first published paper to examine the experiences of transgender patients in emergency department settings, and is based on data from our longstanding project, Trans PULSE," first study author Greta Bauer, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Western's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, said in a news release.

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More information regarding the study can be found via the Annals of Emergency Medicine.