Hyderabad: Mitr Clinic, India’s first healthcare centre for the transgender community, has shut down operations.
There were three such clinics in Hyderabad, which were set up Hyderabad in 2021 through a collaboration between United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Johns Hopkins University under US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) initiative, which helps countries fight HIV/AIDS.
But after Donald Trump took charge as US President for a second term in January, he imposed a 90-day freeze on all US foreign assistance, including over $40 billion allocated for international projects through USAID.
Trump has ordered a 90-day pause on all foreign aid pending a review to ensure all projects funded with US taxpayer money are aligned with his ‘America First’ policy.
The Presidential order has affected India’s first three Mitr clinics, which provided various services including guidance and medication on hormone therapy, counselling on mental health as well as on HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, and legal aid, in addition to general medical care, Reuters reported.
The stop-work order from the USAID has disrupted services for nearly 5,000 people, reported Reuters.
The Mitr clinics were run by doctors, counsellors and other workers from the transgender community.
What next for the clinics?
Each of the Mitr clinics needed around Rs 30 lakh a year to run and employed about people. A source told Reuters they were looking for alternate sources of funding, public or private.
However, organisers of the clinics have got a waiver from USAID to keep running certain life-saving activities, including providing antiretroviral medication to HIV-infected people.
Around 10% of those who visited the clinic are infected by HIV.
Reacting to the closure of clinics for transgenders, Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk commented, “That’s what American tax dollars were funding.”
There are two other Mitr clinics, in Maharashtra’s Kalyan and Pune.
