MDA National is one of Australia’s four major medical indemnity providers. They have recently announced they will no longer provide insurance cover for doctors who provide medical transitioning treatments for under 18’s.

Dr Michael Gannon, the organisation’s president, said young people experiencing gender dysphoria should be initially assessed by multidisciplinary teams in hospital – not by GPs.

“This is the same hospital system that is very, very comfortable placing greater demands on general practitioners,” he said. “It’s simply not fair to ask individual GPs in the suburbs or the bush to be making these complex decisions on their own.”

Gannon said the decision was made in response to legal cases overseas, including the high-profile inquiry into, and subsequent closure of, Britain’s only children’s gender clinic.

“We’re not taking a moral stance or an ethical stance – this is very much an insurance decision,” he said. “We don’t think we can accurately and fairly price the risk of regret.”

GP’s who insist on proscribing medical interventions such as puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones will need to move to another provider. 

Countries such as the UK, Finland and Sweden have all paused such treatment for children due to legal action and a lack of rigorous academic study measuring the outcomes for such children.

There are an increasing number of claims that minors are being issued drugs from Australian doctors and gender clinics without underlying issues being addressed and with minimal consultation times. 

Trans regret stories are also increasing on social media where many claim they are not included in the statistics because they simply stop seeing their practitioners.

A Royal Commission is desperately needed for the sake of children in this country.

Medical insurers are all about risk and at the end of the day, how to pay out the least amount of dollars in claims. 

It is no surprise that one of the majors has recognised the risk and is withdrawing before a wave of claims are made by children who become adults and realise they were sold the lie that taking drugs would enable them to change sex.