FOCUS Proud parents Asish Purushan (left) and Krishneel Lall (right) welcome baby Sidharth to their family with surrogate Mazyline McCarthy and their obstetrician and gynecologist, Dr. Brenda Woods.
this can often lead to avoidance of care. This is especially true for transgender individuals,” says Dr. Frecker. “Changing the healthcare environment and implementing gender inclusive training and education for all providers is key to creating safe spaces for all of our patients and staff.” When Asish and Mazyline met with Jennifer Bordin, Manager, Maternal, Newborn & Child Health Services, they were overwhelmed by the level of support from the team. They were educated on the hospital’s surrogacy policy, toured the unit and developed a birthing plan that all parties would be comfortable with during and after the delivery of the baby. “Jennifer asked us questions about the birthing plan that we hadn’t even thought about because we didn’t re-
alize we would be given these choices during the process,” says Asish. “We were totally blown away. It was a beautiful experience – so kind, inclusive and thoughtful.” The Family Birthing Centre formed an LGBTQ Committee earlier this year. The Committee has participated in Toronto Pride, reached out to LGBTQ families for feedback on their care, organized hospital rounds with same-sex couples sharing their experiences, updated the pre-admission questionnaire to use inclusive language and gender-neutral pronouns, and implemented positive space signs on the unit. MGH has partnered with The 519 since 2015 to provide inclusion training to staff – to date, 400 frontline H staff have received training. ■
Erica Di Maio is Senior Consultant, Corporate Communications at Michael Garron Hospital. Photo: Michael Garron Hospital
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