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Women Experiencing Severe Health Issues Told To 'suck It Up', MPs Told

NHS medical staff need to "take women seriously" when it comes to health problems, TV stars Vicky Pattison and Naga Munchetty told MPs as they shared their experiences of feeling dismissed.

Pattison, who came to fame on the reality show Geordie Shore, said she felt "stupid and ashamed", while BBC Breakfast presenter Munchetty recalled being told to "suck it up" since she was a teenager as they both tried to get a diagnosis and treatment for menstrual and gynaecological issues.

The pair appeared before the Women and Equalities Committee on Wednesday as part of its inquiry into women's reproductive health.

Former Geordie Shore star Vicky Pattison told MPs about her experiences of feeling dismissed when she tried to have her health problems diagnosed (James Manning/PA)

Both women said they ended up going private after failing to get the care they needed on the NHS.

Pattison, who has now been diagnosed with pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), said she faced extreme symptoms when she reached her late 20s, including "crippling anxiety", insomnia and fatigue, but they were put down to PMS (pre-menstrual syndrome) when she visited various doctors across the country.

She said: "I was always told exactly the same thing: 'This is PMS. This is what women go through. Every other woman in the world is dealing with this'."

This made her feel "even more invalidated", she said, as she wondered if she just needed to just "get on with it".

The committee was told the symptoms "in some of the darker moments" saw Pattison feel "the world would be better without us (Vicky) in it".

Of her experience with doctors, she added: "I can't tell you how many times I got told, 'They'll (symptoms) get worse as you get older, this is just natural'. And you believe it. You absolutely believe it and you believe that you're weak, that you can't cope with what every other woman is coping with."

She decided to go for private healthcare this year "after feeling ignored and invalidated by the NHS" and said she "could've kicked myself for taking so long" as she was immediately diagnosed with PMDD.

She said: "I felt like for the first time somebody actually listened and took it seriously."

On her experience before going private, she said: "I felt like I was wasting the NHS's time. That's how I got to. And when I eventually was paying to see somebody, I felt like I had more of a right to sit there and speak. And that's mental. Like, that's not right, you know, so no, I felt stupid and ashamed and like I was wasting everybody's time and I felt weak."

Broadcaster and journalist Naga Munchetty, who has been diagnosed with adenomyosis, said things reached a point where her husband called an ambulance due to the intense pain she was in.

Broadcaster Naga Munchetty said she had been told to 'suck it up' in relation to gynaecological issues (House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA)

She said she had been told since she was about 15 "just to 'suck it up' and 'you're normal' and 'everyone goes through this', and especially told by male doctors who've never experienced a period and then by female doctors who hadn't experienced period pain".

She said there was a "constant, 'You're fine, everyone else is putting up with this, why can't you?'"

She said she had unexplained heavy bleeding for nearly two weeks and her GP, who specialised in women's reproductive health, advised her to go private if possible due to lengthy NHS waiting lists.

Acknowledging she is "fortunate enough to be able to have private healthcare", she said it was the "only time I felt I could sit there and take time and force an issue, force understanding, force explanations from my gynaecologist and not feel bad that I was taking up more than 10 minutes of my GP's time because there was a queue of people in the waiting room".

Both Pattison and Munchetty told the MPs women must be properly listened to in the health service when they are expressing concerns about pain.

Pattison said: "GPs, anyone within the NHS, any medical professionals at all, they just need to start to take women seriously when they say something's wrong. I know loads of brilliant women and I don't feel like we're the weaker sex at all. I feel like we're brilliant. I feel like we're strong and powerful and we put up with a lot more than blokes do most of the time.

"If we have got ourselves up and gone into a doctor's, a hospital, whatever, to say something's wrong, I feel like the least people can do is listen to her and believe that there is something wrong."

She said there needs to be "better knowledge, better understanding" about health issues affecting women specifically.

Echoing those sentiments, Munchetty added: "No woman says she's in pain unless she is in real pain. No woman says she is anxious unless she is really anxious. No woman wants to appear weak or appear incapable until she really is, until she can't cope anymore. And it shouldn't be that way."

The Committee's inquiry is examining the challenges women face when they are being diagnosed and treated for gynaecological and reproductive conditions, including considering any disparities that exist in diagnosis and treatment and the impact of women's experiences on their health and lives.

Have A Question About Women's Health? Submit It To Get It Answered On Air

On Thursday, Oct. 19, we'll be sharing a very special show called Own Your Health, where we're talking all things women's health. We'll be joined by Maria Shriver, who's sitting down with her daughters, Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt and Christina Schwarzenegger, for a very personal conversation! Plus, Naomi Watts and Bobbie Thomas will be opening up about their own health experiences. We'll also be joined by women's health specialists who'll be sharing what women need to know at all different stages of life and answering your biggest questions from libido to menopause to cortisol and weight loss. It's everything you need to know to help you own your health!

Submit your questions to be answered on air during the Own Your Health special here.

This article was originally published on TODAY.Com

Women, For The Sake Of Your Health, I Need You To Say This Word

We should all be using the right words for our anatomy (Picture: Alice Duffy)

'There's something wrong with my lady garden.'

'Doctor, I've got a problem down below.'

'I need to talk to you about my private parts.'

As a doctor specialising in female health, these are the things I hear day in day out from patients who are trying to describe their problems to me.

In fact, in my 30-plus years as a medical professional, I have very rarely heard a patient refer to it as their 'vulva'.

Yet that would be the right term, and we really should be using the correct terminology.

Doctors always aim for good communication and that means confronting language head on. So I'll often respond with, 'Do you mean you have a problem with your vulva?'

Even with this approach and me having said it first, most women will still avoid the use of the word in the consultation.

But we should all be using the right words for our anatomy to ensure there's never space for misunderstanding. Using euphemisms will only lead to confusion, which can result in poor understanding. Poor understanding leads to poor care.

As GPs, we have approximately 10 minutes to assess a patient and offer care. This small window is not a huge amount of time to get to the bottom of what a patient needs, and as a result of time pressures in the NHS, most requests for a GP appointment will be triaged to assess the urgency of the problem.

To get the most out of this, patients need to be able to clearly communicate the nature of their problems so they can receive the appropriate diagnosis and care.

If you are unable to state the part of your body that is causing concern, your doctor or medical professional may misunderstand, and this can lead to misdiagnosis and incorrect advice.

You may be incorrectly triaged to self-care when in fact you need to be seen for examination and assessment, and to receive medication or further support.

Perhaps the best example of the damage that can come from women's societal shame of using the correct terms – and thus failure to understand their bodies – came after I made a prescription.

I gave my patient a cream to be used in the vagina to treat dryness and pain with intercourse.

However, she was applying the cream to her vulva, not her vagina, as she had confused the two, meaning her symptoms didn't get better.

Her vaginal dryness and pain with intercourse persisted, all because of an embarrassment or knowledge gap around her anatomy.

Our reluctance to name our genitalia is curious. We are happy to talk about our lips, mouth and throat as the separate parts of our body that form the opening into our gut.

What is what?

Vulva: The external female genitalia surrounding the vagina. The vulva include the labia, clitoris and more.

Vestibule: The area around the vaginal opening, enclosed by the labia minora.

Vagina: The muscular canal that leads from your cervix to your vulva.

Labia: The folds of skin around your vaginal opening – these consist or outer and inner lips.

Clitoris: A sensitive organ at the top of your vulva, which contains thousands of sensory nerve endings.

Yet so many people struggle to talk about the vulva, vestibule and vagina that form the opening into the female reproductive tract.

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These are simply anatomical terms that should be used appropriately.

In my experience, the taboo around female genitalia starts early.

We need to start using the word 'vulva' with girls from a young age, and remove the hush-hush nature of these conversations.

Whether it's ensuring age-appropriate education at school, or via our parenting, we need to ensure that children are comfortable with these terms before they become adults.

We all need to take responsibility for phasing out the nicknames and false language so that we can refer to our bodies correctly.

Sadly, there is cultural discomfort with female sexuality and this means that we shy away from words like 'vulva' or 'clitoris'.

The fact that the clitoris is associated with female sexual pleasure makes this a part of the body that is rarely referred to; this needs to change.

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