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Original poster

To ask why women's healthcare is so bad

51 replies

SerenePeach · 20/11/2024 21:34

On the news yesterday was a feature on womens healthcare. I have endometriosis and lived in pain for 15 years before getting a diagnosis and treatment. Women were telling of how they lost internal organs to endometriosis due to their care being so delayed. This happened to me too.

A gynaecologist was interviewed saying she felt so helpless with over 750,000 women on the waiting list. She said whenever there are cut backs gynaecology is always the worst impacted. Why?

I don't believe it's as simple as men don't care about women and men are in charge. So why is this happening? Really? Can anyone shed any light? Gynae illnesses cost the economy 11 billion a year in lost work through sickness so money alone should motivate the powers that be to improve women's health care, so why isn't it happening?

OP posts:
Octavia64 · 20/11/2024 21:38

I have endo.

Mostly it isn't a priority because:

You won't die of it anytime soon

It won't leave you (mostly) so severely disabled you need a care home or state support (compare to heart attack or stroke)

It takes an operation to diagnose it (very expensive)

There's fuck all they can do about it anyway other than put you on hormonal contraception that stops periods (implant, pill) so frankly they might as well just do that.

I've had two operations to cauterise endo (private, it was made clear I wouldn't even be added to the nhs waiting list as I was too young) and honestly stopping having periods was the best solution.