A disturbing new study has just found that up to half of doctors in EU member states such as Bulgaria, Italy and Poland believe that being gay is a ‘disease’ which you can ‘catch’ and, presumably, treat. The study, from the European Agency for Fundamental Rights, found that many healthcare professionals perceived homosexuality as a “pathological condition or disease”. 

In some countries such as Romania, half of all doctors and nurses continue to view homosexuality as a disease, and are taught to do so at universities and colleges across the country. Despite the fact that it is against official EU guidance to classify homosexuality as an illness, a large proportion of medical professionals in Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia all suggested that you could ‘catch’ homosexuality. One nurse in Romania described gay people as “plague-stricken” while other prejudices, such as the view that LGBT people should hide their identities, were widespread in the post-Soviet countries. 

The report concludes by suggesting that in some countries, LGBT people are treated as “lesser citizens” by society, and that much greater progress is needed to address this “vicious circle of lack of awareness, prejudice and invisibility”. 

While the report made for grim reading, it’s fair to say that it’s not just European hospitals which may have a problem when it comes to treating LGBT people. According to a study from LGBT charity Stonewall last year, homophobic views continue to persist in our very own NHS. 

h/t Pink News