Maharashtra: Dedicated health clinic for transgender people to be started in Pune

As transgender people often face discrimination at hospitals, a clinic is being started in Maharashtra that will provide basic healthcare facilities to them including counselling sessions and lab tests.

The clinic in Pune named 'Accelerate' will provide free healthcare services to the people belonging to the transgender community. While speaking to ANI, Deepak Nikam, District Coordinator of Accelerate told ANI, "Services will include counselling sessions to improve the mental health of individuals. Also, lab tests can be carried out to diagnose minor ailments. We hope to start this centre soon."

Nikam further told ANI, "After carrying out community research, our team found out that we should start a separate healthcare centre for the trans-people. With this initiative, we hope we can provide a much-needed healthcare support to them."

Sonali Dalvi, transgender activist who was present at the venue said, "Usually, we face a lot of discrimination from local people if we are being treated in a normal hospital ward. Many women do not feel comfortable with our presence. Hence, we hope that via this clinic, we trans-people can take care of our healthcare."

A ray of hope now emerges for these people who wish to avail quality healthcare in the Pune region.

On September 16, 2020, as per an official release, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has enacted, "The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights), Act, 2019". As per Chapter VII of the Act in the National Council for Transgender Persons, along with other members, five representatives of transgender community from the State/UTs by rotation and five experts to represent Non-Governmental Organizations or associations working for the welfare of transgender persons are to be nominated by the Central Government. The Council will assess the impact of various policies and they are free to decide on the modalities.

( With inputs from ANI )