NHS gender bias on heart attacks ‘ killing thousands of women’
THOUSANDS of women are needlessly dying of strokes and heart attacks because the NHS sees them as ‘male diseases’, a damning report reveals today.
Female patients are being failed by a sexist bias in the health system that means they are more likely to die in such instances than men, MPs have found.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Women’s Health criticises the Government for failing to raise awareness of women’s symptoms. Their report found that health officials present pain in the chest and left arm as ‘classic’ symptoms of heart attacks. However, women are likely to experience other symptoms, such as indigestion or nausea – but these are often dismissed, as they are classed as ‘atypical’. Some women do not even realise they are having a heart attack, and often delay seeking help, due to a general lack of awareness.
‘Public awareness campaigns have typically involved men and the symptoms which men suffer,’ the MPs say. Their report adds: ‘With some simple changes, and a shift in the way that the NHS thinks about women’s health, a vast difference could be made to the life of thousands, if not millions, of women, in the UK.’
Research published earlier this year revealed that poor treatment contributed to the deaths from heart attacks of more than 8,200 women.
About 69,000 women have an attack each year, compared with 119,000 men – but they are more than twice as likely to die within a month. More women than men also die of strokes, with pregnancy and hormone pills putting them at greater risk.
However, today’s report says officials have failed to make women aware of these risks. It adds that women ‘ receive poorer treatment’ for strokes than men, and worse outcomes.
Paula Sherriff, who leads the MPs’ group, said: ‘The misper
‘Leaflets in hair salons’
ception that heart attack and stroke are men’s conditions is costing lives. We need to act now to ensure everyone has the information and gets the outcomes they deserve.’
Four in five of the experts interviewed for the report said there is not enough awareness to alert women to signs of heart attacks.
The MPs are now calling for a campaign including leaflets in doctors’ surgeries and in hair salons to highlight that strokes and heart attacks are not just men’s conditions.
Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, of the British Heart Foundation, said: ‘Heart attacks are all too often seen as a man’s disease, however coronary heart disease kills more than twice as many women in the UK each year as breast cancer.’