WHATEVER virtues there may be in principle in the landmark victory in the High Court by three transsexuals over a Lancashire health authority's refusal to fund sex-change surgery, in practice it may only lead to even worse unfairness.
For it leaves the NHS open to transsexuals nationwide demanding as a right operations costing up to £9,000 a time when other patients with more serious - and some might say, more real - illnesses are pushed further down the queue.
If it has to be reluctantly accepted that rationing exists in the NHS because of limited resources, health chiefs will have to give priority to those who are sick over those whose "illness" is , despite what the law may say, more truly classifiable as a condition.
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