Activism for Equality, Sergo Chikhladze

“As a health care specialist, I would like to address my colleagues about sensitive issues such as health and rights of LGBT people. Since 1974, homosexuality has been removed from the list of diseases by the American Psychiatric Association and in the 70-80s, almost all international organizations working on mental health, including World Health Organization, removed it from the list of diseases.

Although homosexuality is not a disease, a large part of society is not aware of it. The most surprising is that my colleagues, medical professionals, are not informed about that and still there are a lot of people in the medical sphere who treat homosexuality as a disease. This is, of course, incorrect.

When we, medical providers, graduate from the university and take the first steps in the field of healthcare, in a practical way, first of all, we take an oath to serve everyone equally, regardless of sexual orientation, gender, racial, ethnic or religious identity, regardless of origin or political views, etc.

Therefore, it is of great importance that we, as practitioner doctors, as well as healthcare managers, researchers, medical personnel, all people with probability to have role in LGBT people’s health, should acknowledge their rights, to take care of their needs and to treat LGBT people as decently as they do with any other patient”, – says Sergo Chikhladze, a doctor.