After angering Alberta’s transsexual community by axing funding for gender reassignment surgery in the 2009 budget, provincial Health Minister Ron Liepert has backtracked a bit, saying people currently awaiting the surgery will have their procedures “funded to completion.”

Liepert said in question period April 14 that roughly 26 Albertans have had their surgeries approved by the government. Another 20 or so people, he said, have been prescribed hormonal drugs, but haven’t yet been approved for surgery funding. “It is the intention that those 20 will also be covered under the program,” he added.

Calgarian Jordenne Prescott is on a waiting list for the surgery, and was encouraged by Liepert’s comments. “I think it’s a great step in the right direction,” Prescott says. “The government [is] acknowledging that they have a greater responsibility here than what they initially alluded to.”

However, a group of transsexual activists, including Prescott, is filing human rights complaints against the province in hopes that the government will fully reverse its decision. “It’s important to protect what is essentially a medically necessary procedure for people,” says Mercedes Allen, another Calgarian awaiting the surgery. “…It brings closure to a very, very serious issue that can result in a lot of anxieties, depression, sometimes drug addiction if it’s not treated.”

The Conservatives have also indicated they may delist other health services to cut costs. “Unless we get a handle on expenditures, we won’t have a publicly funded health care system,” Liepert said.