Minister ‘sorry’ for endometriosis treatment waits as she launches new framework

By Bairbre Holmes, PA

Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll Neil has said she is “sorry” women and girls have had to wait years for treatment as she launched Ireland’s first National Endometriosis Framework.

She said they have “missed out on” school, sport and fertility opportunities and lived in “chronic pain all of the time” because they “didn’t have the treatment that worked for them”.

Endometriosis causes cells, similar to those in the lining of the womb, to grow outside the uterus and can cause a range of symptoms, with some people experiencing chronic, debilitating pain.

It is believed to affect as many as one in seven women in Ireland and there is no known cure.

The Department of Health described the framework, launched on Saturday, as “an important milestone in the evolution of women’s healthcare in Ireland”.

Women and girls with endometriosis symptoms will now be treated with the presumption they have the condition.

The minister said this approach recognises that women are “the best narrators of their own symptoms, of their own pain, and we’re trying to change the way in which their voices are heard in relation to endometriosis”.

Two regional specialist centres are being developed in Galway and at the National Maternity Hospital expanding on the three established regional specialist centres in Dublin and Limerick.

Complex cases will be transferred to two “super-regional” centres in Dublin and Cork.

In addition, the Health Service Executive is recruiting an additional colorectal surgeon and has said it will carry out more than 100 additional operations for patients waiting for treatment.

There is also a menstrual health national awareness campaign planned for next year, and the Department of Health said it will be communicating with doctors, including GPs, to raise awareness of the condition.

Ruby Furney, 24, who was at the announcement, has suffered endometriosis symptoms for 11 years. She said it has “ruined” her life “in a lot of aspects, adding: “It’s taken my social life. It’s really impacted my work life. It’s impacted relationships.”

Like many women, she had to travel abroad for treatment. Two weeks ago she underwent a 10-hour operation in Athens.

She said that, among other issues, surgeons found the disease had “destroyed” her appendix. They removed 8cm of her bowel and repaired her organs, which were “stuck to my pelvis and stuck to my back”.