Hospital disgracefully diagnoses woman with ‘disease’ of ‘homosexuality’
(Envato)
A hospital in Spain diagnosed a gay woman with the “disease” of “homosexuality” after she visited a gynaecologist.
On Monday (4 October), the 19-year-old visited the the Reina Sofía hospital in the city of Murcia, Spain, for a gynaecology appointment.
According to Spanish site El Diario, the young woman with diagnosed with polymenorrhea, a form of abnormal uterine bleeding. But confusingly, after the exam, the doctor asked if they could note her sexual orientation in her medical notes.
She agreed, thinking that it may be relevant to her diagnosis.
However, when she later viewed her notes, she saw that the doctor had written: “Current disease: homosexuality.”
“At first, I thought it was funny, but it just isn’t,” she said. “There can’t be doctors like this, these attitudes must be eradicated.”
She and her mother, who also spoke to El Diario, decided to get in touch with local LGBT+ collective, Galactyco, which helped them report the incident in formal complaints to the regional government, the regional health ministry and the regional health service.
Galactyco said in a statement: “The World Health Organization removed homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses in 1990, and yet, 31 years on, there are still some professionals in Murcia’s health service who view sexual orientation as an illness.”
It added that it had been notified of “numerous cases of humiliating treatment due to sexual orientation or gender identity, and we consider alarming, unacceptable and intolerable that to date the professionals, on whom the adequate treatment of our health depends, ignore the realities of LGBT+ people”.
The Murcian Health Service told the publication that it was aware of the incident, and that “all necessary measures would be taken to properly establish the facts and to proceed accordingly”.
It added that the diagnosis “appears to be an error”, and that the hospital would apologise to the young woman.
Spain has seen a shocking string of homophobic attacks in recent months
This year has seen a string of brutal homophobic attacks in Spain.
In July, a gay British man had his jaw smashed with a hammer in an alleged homophobic attack in Barcelona, leaving him in need of surgery.
The country’s LGBT+ community took to the streets in protest following the death of Samuel Luiz, who died following a brutal beating in A Coruña at the hands of a dozen men on 3 July.
In May, the Observatory Against Homophobia (OCH) said five gay men had been injured in Barcelona in three separate homophobic incidents over the course of just a few days.
One of those attacks left a man in need of facial surgery after he and his friends were assaulted on a beach.
