My daughter Joelle was 27 when she died after Wolverhampton NHS Trust took 16 days to find her a bed for urgent cancer treatment.

Joelle had an aggressive form of lymphoma that affects children and young people in their twenties. It has become almost entirely curable when treated immediately, but it is rapidly and certainly fatal when treatment is delayed. In its urgency and survival rate, it is closer to appendicitis than to most cancers. The treatment pathway is well understood. Joelle needed treatment immediately. A delay of 16 days was impossible to survive and cost her her life.

There was a bed available on the cancer ward on the day Joelle was admitted. I know because we saw it. She was initially taken to that ward. When staff saw her, they changed their minds. Joelle was taken back to A&E for 12 hours and then placed alone in a single room on an inappropriate ward on the far side of the hospital.

Joelle was placed there because she was trans. She was refused the available bed on the cancer ward because it was in a multi-bed women’s ward.

The day before, Conservative health minister Steve Barclay had announced plans to block trans women from women’s wards, saying: “As Conservatives we know what a woman is.”

Being placed on the wrong ward did more than delay Joelle’s cancer treatment. It left her in the care of staff who had no experience or competence in cancer pain management and did not understand how rapidly someone with aggressive lymphoma could deteriorate.

Joelle spent 16 days in intense, persistent and unmanaged pain. Her abdominal tumour measured 98cm. Her normal weight was eight stone. Her deterioration was expected for this form of lymphoma, but the steps needed to protect and care for her were not taken.

Joelle is dead because she was trans.

Left to suffer and die for over two weeks just because she was trans.