HSE foots €1.5m bill for sex-change ops

The Health Service Executive (HSE) has paid for at least 49 patients to undergo sex-change operations abroad, at a cost to the taxpayer of around €1.5m.

The procedure is not performed in Irish hospitals, but it can be arranged in another country and funded by the HSE under the Treatment Abroad Scheme (TAS).

Gender reassignment, or ‘sex-change’ surgery, is a treatment for gender identity disorder (GID) and involves the reconstruction of genitalia to resemble that of the opposite sex.