Take Action to Open GMHS Now

Dublin’s Gay Men’s Health Service—the GMHS—is one of the busiest sexual health services in Ireland and the only one specifically serving gay and bisexual men and trans people.

It’s also the only public sexual health service that hasn’t reopened since March 2020.

The GMHS has been closed for

The GMHS is a vital community health resource. Thousands of gay and bisexual men and trans people rely on it for essential healthcare including: STI testing and treatment, HIV testing, access to HIV prevention tools like PEP and PrEP, vaccinations, counselling, and more.

They know they can depend on the GMHS to provide expert, specialised care in a supportive, non-judgemental environment.

Take Action

We’re asking the community to contact the Chief Officer of HSE Community Healthcare East, Martina Queally. We need you to help her understand how important the GMHS is, how devastating its absence has been, and why it’s critical for her to intervene.

The tool below will allow you to create and send an email from your personal account to Martina Queally, with copies sent to the CEO of the HSE Paul Reid and Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly. You can use our template as-is or add your own perspective or questions.

You can also read our letter to Martina Queally here.

Why Martina Queally?

HSE Community Healthcare East is responsible for managing the GMHS. As Chief Officer, Martina Queally can do more than anyone else to ensure that the GMHS is reopened as quickly as possible. We need her to send a clear signal that sexual health matters and that opening the GMHS is a high priority.

"It is important that we listen to our clients and patients and let them know we want their views." (Martina Queally, 2015)

Time to Act: Contact the HSE

You'll be able to edit this in your email app before sending if you want. This section is optional, and will add a line to the email to describe your connection to the service. This section is optional, and will add the question you'd like to ask to the email. Found a bug? Please mail ACT UP and let us know!

Subject:

Dear Ms. Queally,

I am writing about the ongoing closure of the Gay Men’s Health Service (GMHS) and asking for your help to end the delays in reopening the clinic.

The extended absence of the GMHS is having an alarming impact on the sexual health of gay and bisexual men and trans people in Dublin and Ireland. Reopening the clinic, restoring the full range of services, and completing plans to expand and improve the service—the longer these are delayed the worse it gets.

I am asking you, as Chief Officer of HSE Community Healthcare East, with responsibility for managing the GMHS, to ensure that this essential service is given the priority it deserves.

The GMHS is special. It is a place where gay and bisexual men and trans people can be confident that they will be respected, that their needs will be understood and addressed in a non-judgemental way, and that they will be treated with sympathy and understanding.

This is a pressing issue, and the consequences of further delay are grave. Please, use your power to expedite the full reopening of the GMHS: restore services, complete planned improvements, and open a second PrEP clinic.

I urge you to act swiftly. Make opening the GMHS a priority for your organisation, see the planned improvements through to completion, and commit to supporting future development of the clinic.

Thank you for your time.

Kind regards,