Disclaimer: The following is a letter to the editor submitted by a writer who has requested to remain anonymous. It represents their personal views on this issue. RVA Magazine is committed to providing a platform for community voices on important local matters. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of RVA Magazine, its staff, or affiliates.
I have a deep, lifelong relationship with VCUHS. My parent retired from the institution after more than 20 years in administration. I attended nursing school there. I have been a nurse there for well over a decade. My entire family are patients, including my transgender child. In all that time, I have never been ashamed of this association—until now. My parent, too, would be ashamed.
On January 30, VCUHS stopped offering certain types of research-driven, life-saving medical care to transgender children. Six days later, as the parent of a transgender child receiving healthcare from the institution, I received a patient portal message informing about this change. The communication was clearly an afterthought.
A judge temporarily blocked Trump’s executive order on February 13; yet, to date, VCUHS has not resumed the care it halted. Our leadership is not sufficiently concerned about the patients they are abandoning.
Trans kids are marginalized in all aspects of life; news about adults using them as political pawns leads them to depression and suicide. The data exists – the health system’s shameful decision will absolutely lead to increased morbidity and mortality. What has been presented as a choice between endangering the hospital’s federal funding and endangering a vulnerable population is a false choice.
The real choice is whether the organization is going to support their patients and doctors or not. The unspoken option is for VCUHS as an institution to be brave – I know it has the resources to fight for the vulnerable populations that it serves.
The legality of Trump’s Executive Orders has not yet been established. Executive Orders are not self-enforcing; they require proactive implementation by local actors, like hospital administrators. Some hospitals will fight the orders in the courts, for the good of their patient population. Some others will preemptively comply, like VCUHS has. In doing so, it fails its patients, its providers and its community.
This is the time for large institutions with robust legal teams to stand up and put a target on themselves – so it can stop being on kids and on pediatricians. The choice to not put up a legal fight was a decision borne of cowardice. Rather than pushing back, and suing for the right to keep helping patients, the leadership of this institution rolled over preemptively.
This has produced ongoing harm to VCUHS’s reputation: it has been widely featured in international news coverage of hospitals that immediately yielded. The institution is showing that it is not a trustworthy partner for Virginia’s LGBTQ+ community.
Other marginalized communities that our hospital is meant to serve can see that their trans neighbors, friends, coworkers, are being abandoned by VCUHS. How can we expect immigrant communities, African American communities, people with disabilities, or even ciswomen to trust that the institution will stand up for their medical needs? How can we expect to keep good doctors, good scientists, when our leadership folds so quickly? It starts with trans kids, but it won’t end there: now there are ongoing attacks on Medicaid, vaccines, scientific research, and what remains of abortion rights and family planning services.
The longer that VCUHS chooses to stay silent and collaborate with this unconstitutional pressure, without pushing back, the more and more of the general population will be affected, and the more and more health outcomes will decline. That’s out of line with VCUHS’ mission: to improve the health of people in Virginia and beyond through research, education, and service. Our values are meant to include: integrity, compassion, teamwork and professionalism. There’s nothing professional about supporting anti-scientific approaches to medicine; there’s no integrity involved in dropping support for existing patients’ plans of care; there’s no teamwork with the community when populations are being abandoned, and our leadership has shown a total lack of compassion for our local trans community. We are no longer involved in providing some of the services that Virginians need, and the more of these medical treatments that are abandoned due to political pressure, the further the health system is from its stated goals.
VCUHS made no public statement about why this care is no longer available, how much this situation conflicts with the organization’s values, and no transparent pathway towards resuming this care. No public message sends no public support – which speaks volumes to all populations that already have reasons to distrust the medical system.
The VCUHS leadership has misjudged the moment, and the stakes that are at risk. They have abdicated their responsibility to the people we serve. But it’s not too late – it’s still possible to backtrack. It’s still possible to rehabilitate our reputation by making public statements in favor of existing science, against cruelty to children, and in support of our physicians’ right to practice quality medicine. It’s still possible to fight for our patients.
VCUHS needs to continue being a leader in trusted healthcare in this region; it’s time to rise to the occasion, and provide UNWAVERING support to our most threatened populations.
Photo by Richmond Bizsense
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