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A woman with endometriosis was “gaslighted” by doctors over severe period pain for more than a decade and told by one doctor “It’s not as though you’re dying” after suffering a miscarriage.
Jenny Ockona-Mensah, has spent decades being “fobbed off” by NHS services over “consuming” period pain and was just 20 years old when doctors suggested her only options were to get pregnant or go on the pill.
The London therapist’s story comes as the organisers of a poll warned women are being treated as “second class” citizens by the NHS.
A poll of 2,000 women found more than a third have been forced to take time off work due to gynaecological conditions. Of those, more than 41 per cent were off work for three months.
The findings indicated 42 per cent of women who suffer pain that impacts their daily lives said the NHS does not provide adequate pain management.
The news comes after top doctors called for urgent action over the NHS’ waiting list for gynaecological care after it hit almost 600,000.
Praful Nargund, Labour councillor and trustee for Create Health Foundation, which carried out the survey, told The Independent: “The scale of this problem is staggering. It’s unacceptable.
“I’m both astonished and terrified at the same time, astonished that in 2024 we accept this level of problem for 51 per cent of the population and terrified because of what this means for my wife, for my two young daughters, for my mum. You know that they will have a worse experience of healthcare throughout their life, the way women’s health services are at the moment.”
“We have a problem here which is not just deeply morally unjust, it’s economically illiterate too.”
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Gaslight over pain
Ms Ockona Mensah was a teenager when she started suffering from severely painful periods, which resulted in her being admitted to A&E every month for pain management.
Despite the regular hospital admissions, she said her GP told her “periods are painful”. Years later, after finally being diagnosed, she was told she should put up with the pain, go on the pill or get pregnant.
“The pain just got increasingly worse,” she said. “There’d be periods of time when I was just laying on the floor in agony. I couldn’t get to the bathroom. Paracetamol didn’t work.”
She added: “I had over 10 years of suffering from pain, but was just being told the options were either to go on the pill or to live with it…even at a young age (20 years old) I was told the best thing to do was to get pregnant. It was quite scary to think that was one of the few options available to me.”
“I was told, take this hormone medication, get pregnant, and then when you’re old enough, you can have a hysterectomy… It normalised that painful periods were something to put up with.”
Years later after experiencing pain due to surgeries following a miscarriage, she said she was told by a doctor: “It’s not as though you were dying.”
She said: “It felt dehumanising. I felt as though I was being made up to be a drama queen. It totally invalidated my experience. And knowing what I’ve been through due to my health conditions that have affected my pregnancy, to then just have a lack of compassion and lack of an empathetic response just felt like another blow.”
At 45, Ms Ockona Mensah has finally had some relief from her pain through a medical menopause but she said she still faces a constant fight, having to advocate for herself.
“As a woman, you know our health is not prioritised, and many women are still massively desolate and have their experiences invalidated,” she said. “It’s really, really disheartening, because even before my surgery to remove fibroids, I was on a waiting list, and I couldn’t leave my house because I was just in so much agony, profusely bleeding.
“Women are just told to shut up and put up with it.”
The Create Health survey found 20 per cent of women with a gynaecological or obstetric condition say they were not taken seriously by their NHS professional, and more than a quarter said their problem was not adequately treated.
One in five struggled to access NHS treatment, and a quarter reported having a negative experience in the last two years.
The survey suggests that NHS waiting lists are forcing women to turn to private healthcare, with 12 per cent saying they have used it, rising to 19 per cent among younger millennials and older Gen Zs.
Mr Nargund said the current government must treat the problems facing women’s health as a cross-departmental issue in addition to more investment in women’s health services themselves and more investment in research.
He called for workplace adjustments to be made for women across industries.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “It is unacceptable that so many women are not receiving the gynaecology and obstetric care they need. This government is determined to change that and is committed to prioritising women’s health.
“This government will deliver the investment and reform needed to turn the NHS around, including tackling waiting lists with an extra 40,000 appointments per week, helping women get treatment sooner.”
This story was updated on 10 October with a response from the DHSC.
