SARAA has written to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing, the Hon. Blair Boyer MP, requesting an update on the stalled Statewide Adult Gender Affirming Surgery Service.
SA Health’s 2023 Model of Care explicitly promised public top surgery by mid-2025. One year past that deadline, 390 trans and gender diverse South Australian adults remain stranded due to funding and approval bottlenecks within SA Health. Compounding this, a long-running facial feminisation clinic at the Royal Adelaide Hospital was shut down in mid-2025, and SA Health’s outdated and discriminatory Restricted Elective Surgery Policy still explicitly bans “gender reassignment surgery.”
These continuous bureaucratic delays and lack of transparency are creating a painful cycle of false hope, exacerbating severe psychological distress for a highly vulnerable cohort. Gender-affirming healthcare is not elective; it is a clinically necessary, life-saving intervention.
Despite 538 community members and allies writing to SA Health to demand answers, the community has faced total silence.
SARAA has requested an urgent update to unblock these administrative hurdles, secure the necessary funding, and ensure SA Health finally delivers on its promises. We extend our deep thanks to Trans Justice Adelaide, dedicated clinicians, and the community members standing with us in the fight for equitable healthcare.
On Friday July 31, 2026 SA Health advised Trans Justice Adelaide that despite a surgical model, which relates only to patients 18 years and over, being developed by the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network there is no proposed date for introducing adult gender affirming surgery in the public health system in South Australia.