It is extremely disturbing to discover that the largest gender clinic in NSW has no accurate data about the number of teenagers being placed on irreversible cross-sex hormones.

Despite being alerted to this concerning fact, the NSW Health minister has indicated there will be no move to rectify the situation despite almost 1000 teenagers using the service.

How can a tax-payer funded service be allowed to provide ‘health’ care to vulnerable children without collecting accurate data?

The service responded to NSW Labor MP Greg Donnelly, who sought basic numbers under Freedom of Information laws, saying it had discovered “nil” documents when running a search of its records to check those details.

Mr Donnelly later challenged the lack of data provided in a NSW tribunal, and the NSW Crown Solicitor’s office told him Maple Leaf House could not reveal the number of ­adolescents prescribed cross-sex hormone drugs, given to older teenagers because “there is no extractable data field in the Patient Information System” used by the service in relation to the prescription of such drugs and “nor is a manual register maintained with respect to this information”. 

Every other state gender service provided numbers to Mr Donnelly on the provision of cross-sex hormones, which cause infertility among other irreversible effects. Mr Donnelly branded the NSW health department’s failure to provide the numbers for Maple Leaf House as “nothing short of a scandal”.

“Maple Leaf House operational procedures make the UK’s failed Tavistock Gender Identity Clinic’s look good,” he said.

The Cass Report, recently published after a comprehensive inquiry in the UK, found that a lack of recorded data is unacceptable considering these drugs can cause irreversible harm.

The NSW Labor government has refused to conduct a comprehensive inquiry, knowing full well that the UK, some states in the US and Nordic countries have all banned the use of such harmful drugs after conducting their own inquiries.

The children of NSW deserve a comprehensive inquiry, with accurate data, before being prescribed such harmful drugs.

They deserve safeguarding, not being used as experimental guinea pigs in an ideological war.