Online gynea clinics can help ‘empower’ women

LEADING UK gynaecologist Dr Karen Morton thinks there’s demand for convenient access to women’s health experts and her clinic is one of only a handful of private practices that have set up a helpline

The growth of online private services may not only play a role in helping relieve the burden on the NHS, and offer greater convenience to people who’d rather pay for an appointment if it means they don’t have to wait for weeks — but in terms of women’s health, the benefits might go even further.

The Google stats, Dr Morton points out, are evidence that lots of women have unanswered questions about their health.

While they’re significantly more likely to go and see their GP than men (70% of all GP appointments are for women), females are also famous “putter-uppers”, and often don’t want to make a fuss.

And gynaecology is a field where there are many things that, while not medically serious, can have a tremendous impact on somebody’s life (menopause symptoms, problematic periods).

Of the patients she saw in her gynae clinic last week, for example, a few of them had problems they’d been “fobbed off” with by their GP.

“I’m not knocking GPs, the GP brief is far too big, but they can’t possibly be experts in specialist fields and gynaecology, in some regards, is a specialist field,” she says.

“Hopefully, after getting in touch with us or any of the other online services, we will have empowered them to go and have that conversation with their GP.”