Mumbai: After Beed constable Lalita Salve’s genital reconstruction surgery that allowed her to assume the male identity as Lalit, St George Hospital has been getting a lot of queries on the procedure. This has led the hospital to start an exclusive ‘gender reassignment and cosmetology’ outpatient department (OPD). The OPD has started functioning every Tuesday, though it will be officially inaugurated next month.
Dr. Madhukar Gaikwad, medical superintendent, said after Mr. Salve’s surgery and the publicity that it received, 12 such cases have come to the hospital. “This kind of response prompted us to start a separate OPD where one can seek opinion, show reports, and line up for the pre-surgery procedure in cases of gender reassignment and genital reconstruction,” Dr. Gaikwad said.
“Some have called in while many visited us,” Dr. Gaikwad said. Among the new cases are a 35-year-old from Assam, a 20-year-old from Pune, and a five-year-old from Beed.
Mr. Salve’s case hit the limelight when he was rejected leave by the police department for the procedure.
He fought for several months and eventually went under the knife in May when first of the many surgeries was performed on him. The overall procedure may require about a year, and Mr. Salve is likely to come down to Mumbai for the next surgery soon.
Given that the entire process requires many surgeries, it gets expensive in a private hospital. However, in a public setup like St George’s, the cost is heavily subsidised.
Genital reconstruction surgeries are commonly carried out on people raised as the opposite gender due to underdeveloped or ambiguous genitalia, congenital malformations or trauma due to accidental injuries. Gender reassignment or sex change is most commonly opted for by people who want to be opposite of the gender they are born with.
