Callum Bradford was in desperate need of an answer to one important question after spending four days waiting in UNC Hospitals’ medical emergency room.
The transgender boy asked, “Will I be placed in a female ward?” with tangles in his stomach.
Yes.
The response resulted in one of Callum’s worst panic attacks. He told his parents, who fought to overturn the decision they warned would hurt their son more, while sobbing into the hospital phone.
Even though they were able to stop the move, the family was left with few options when Callum was returned to UNC’s emergency room a few months later after suffering from another overdose. When the 17-year-old was informed that he would once more be admitted to a female acute ward, the desire to harm himself had grown out of control, according to the doctors. Medical records provided by the home to The Associated Press contain information about the change.
Callum remarked, “I had a great deal of regret that I had even come to that hospital because I knew I wasn’t going to get the treatment I needed.”
Election officials and proponents of gender-affirming medical treatments for adolescents have frequently argued that parents are never acting in their children’s best interests when they seek therapy as the political controversy over health care for transgender children has intensified across the U.S.
Major health organizations claim that the procedures are safe and issue a warning about the serious mental health effects that waiting for access to puberty-blocking medications, hormones, and, in some cases, surgeries could have on children.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, children and young adults between the ages of 10 and 24 account for roughly 15% of all suicides, and research indicates that LGBTQ+ high school students have higher levels of attempted suicide than their peers.
North Carolina lacks resources, personnel, and staff with the necessary training to care for transgender children, as well as consistent clinical treatment standards.
According to Dr. Jack Turban, chairman of the child psychology program at the University of California, San Francisco, and an expert on access barriers for trans children in inpatient facilities, sending a trans child to an institution that does not align with their gender identity should not be an option.
“Their mental health is going to get worse if you don’t validate the trans identity from day one,” Turban warned.
None of the $835 million that North Carolina lawmakers set aside earlier this year to improve mental health infrastructure was used to address trans patients’ unique needs.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global shortage of pediatric mental health beds as an unprecedented number of people have turned to emergency care. Demand has not yet returned to pre-pandemic rates.
According to Dr. Samantha Meltzer-Brody, head of the UNC Department of Psychiatry, North Carolina lacks about 400 adolescent mental health beds, forcing UNC to transfer patients to other services, even those that are unable to meet their unique needs.
She stated, “We have no choice but to direct people to the next available bed.”
Even though the family was willing to give up its privacy rights, UNC declined to comment on Callum’s case. However, Meltzer-Brody generally addressed obstacles to gender-affirming care for all medical patients.
According to the public hospital system’s policy, patients should be assigned inpatient beds based on their “self-identified gender when feasible.” However, Meltzer-Brody said that achieving that goal is difficult given the ER overrun in recent years.
According to the LGBTQ+ civil rights organization Lambda Legal, it constitutes identity-based discrimination to deny people access to a gender-affirming room assignment.
Families, including Callum’s dad, Dan Bradford, talk about feeling helpless while their kids are receiving unintentional clinical care after an attempted suicide.
Dan Bradford, a physician himself, has always supported his son’s health transition, which started with hormones that he still takes and then drugs that blocked puberty. Callum eventually had major surgery to have his breasts removed. Minors are often subjected to drastic procedures like surgery, and even then, only when it is deemed necessary by the doctor.
According to his father, “In Callum’s case, the gender dysphoria was so severe that not pursuing gender-affirming medical procedures, like pretty rapidly, was going to be life-threatening.”
According to North Carolina laws, medical professionals are not allowed to give anyone under the age of 18 hormones, puberty blockers, or gender-transition surgeries. Callum was able to keep receiving care because he started it before the deadline of August.
He claimed that the General Assembly’s refusal to grant his trans friends the procedures he believes will save their lives has been brutal.
According to Turban, a psychology scholar at UC San Francisco, when these public policies are discussed or passed, it conveys to these children that either their government, society, and community accept and validate them or do not.
Dan Bradford arranged for a place at an inpatient treatment facility in Georgia out
of concern that the plan to place his son in the women’s ward would be extremely traumatizing. He begged UNC to release Callum as soon as possible and persuaded the North Carolina clinic that was supposed to receive him to accept the transfer.
The youth then enrolled in a treatment program in Atlanta for 17 days. He has since returned home and is currently playing keyboard and paddling with his co-ed team on the peaceful waters of Jordan Lake to take care of his emotional wellbeing. He is considering his future for the first time in years.
He claimed that his experiences had damaged his faith in the state’s intensive care network, but he is hopeful that, if combined with policy changes, new resources may provide others with a more gender-affirming experience.
He remarked, “I’m still around, and it makes me happy. I only want that for all of my transgender companions.”
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