A new Charter on the rights of children and young people in healthcare includes sexual orientation and gender as the areas where they should not face discrimination. Among the document's guidelines are that health services “should be accessible to children and young people and provide equality of inputs and outcomes without discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity, race, economic status, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, illness, appearance, language or culture”. The Charter, described as groundbreaking by its creators, has been two years in the making and provides, for the first time, official recognition that children and young people have a right to have a say in the care they receive. "Children and young people have a right to have their voices heard when it comes to their healthcare. What this charter does is formally enshrine a set of rights which should ensure that we get positive outcomes for the section of our society which is most vulnerable," says Dr Rosemary Marks, President of the Paediatric Society of New Zealand and a Developmental Paediatrician at Starship Children's Hospital. The Charter is based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which New Zealand ratified in 1993, and includes 11 rights which, when taken together, aims to ensure that children and young people receive healthcare that is appropriate and acceptable to them and to their families and that they are given the right to exercise choices in health services as much as possible. It was developed by Children's Hospitals Australasia with input from the Paediatric Society of New Zealand after consultation with health care workers, consumers, the Commissioner for Children, and the Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner. There are three versions of the charter; one for the health sector workers and adults, one for young people and one for children.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 12th May 2011 - 6:17pm