Only person in Britain to have changed gender three times sues NHS for refusing to carry out THIRD sex change surgery
The only person in the UK to have changed gender three times has sued the NHS for refusing to carry out a third sex change surgery.
Lady Samantha Kane, who goes by Lady Carbisdale, was born male and initially had surgery in 1997 to become Samantha, before having it reversed to become Charles Kane in 2004.
She said she was refused a third sex change by the University College London Hospital (UCLH), prompting her to get a private procedure in Servia in 2017 which was allegedly “botched.”
Kane claimed that the NHS then refused to treat her after the Serbian procedure reportedly left “infected” surgical devices inside her body, which she said had caused her pain for three years.
UCLH finally agreed to help her in 2021, she said.
In the legal claim, the 64-year-old – who is a trained barrister – said the refusal to provide treatment related to the third gender reassignment amounted to negligence, discrimination and a breach of human rights.
Representing herself at a pre-trial hearing last week Kane told High Court judge Deputy Master Ruth Fine that she was suing UCLH partly for the “negligence of causing me to seek Surgery in Serbia rather than here.”
She blamed the NHS Trust’s negligence for causing her botched surgery.
She stated: “It was negligent of the defendant not to treat me in 2017. The defendants are the only people who are qualified to provide this treatment in the UK.”
“They treat everybody else, then discriminated against me.”
The second part of her claim relates to allegations that UCLH would not correct the “botched” operation, advising her to return to Serbia to get help there instead.
She said: “They were the people qualified to treat me and they refused. This was discrimination against me because I had made a [previous] complaint.”
She then told the judge it was “foreseeable” that she would go to Serbia after being refused an operation by the NHS.
Kane is claiming £162,000, but said the case was “not so much about the money” but rather about “achieving justice.”
Sam Burret, from the NHS trust, told the judge that it would fight the claim.
A full trial is set for a later date.