Te Ohu Rata o Aotearoa (Te ORA), the Māori Medical Practitioner’s Association, wishes to express its condemnation of the unprecedented decision of the coalition government of NZ to ban the new prescribing of GnRH analogues as part of the life-affirming care of young New Zealanders. This decision has removed the long-held responsibility of GnRH counseling and prescribing from health professionals who are trained in gender affirming healthcare with decades of local experience, who assert that GnRH analogues remain a useful and important adjunct to a broad range of care as part of a well-established component of gender affirming care for young people and their whānau.

It is astounding that a government should make such a direct decision about the regulation of a specific medicine, and Te ORA does not support such action. The medical profession is charged with facilitating careful and considered decision making regarding the implementation of medications into the care plan of a patient, including a discussion of the risks and benefits of a medication. Public trust in this process is a vital part of this. It has never occurred that a cabinet itself take on the role of medicines regulator. Foregoing established pathways for the regulation of medicines, the decision to single out and ban a specific medication in this way would ordinarily be perplexing, given that it is completely at odds with the normal processes involved with reviewing medications – with that in mind, Te ORA can only conclude that the decision making process was purely political in nature.

Te ORA asserts that gender affirming care is a human right.

The local and global condemnation of this decision by medical groups, advocacy groups and community providers is warranted. We wish to extend our complete support and advocate for our colleagues working in this space, including PATHA, who work to mitigate the immense harm this decision has caused and will continue to cause communities already experiencing the marginalisation that comes from hateful and oppressive ideologies. To the medical community, we urge all our colleagues to resist the move toward authoritarianism over our work, and to Rainbow, trans, and queer communities we say, Te ORA remains unmoved in our commitment to supporting gender affirming care.

Mauriora ki a tātou.