We’ve had enough poster girls for avoidable death
IT’S a shameful reflection of our dedication to women’s health issues that for all the fanfare about the new Women’s Health Taskforce, women must still undergo horrific suffering right up to and perhaps including death before an urgent condition stands a chance of receiving the attention it deserves. It took the death of Savita Halappanvar to force us to examine abortion provision and Vicky Phelan’s courage and integrity to highlight the CervicalCheck scandal. Phelan also indirectly caused the opening of a specialist menopause clinic at the National Maternity Hospital, after the Scally Report recommended that women’s health issues be given more expert attention within the health system.
The taskforce has also funded the expansion of the endometriosis service at Tallaght Hospital to deal with advanced and complex cases of the condition for which there is no ready access in Ireland.
Yet for all the commitment to make up for decades of underfunding and neglect, the death in Sligo of Laura Newell from painkiller addiction has almost been overlooked as an opportunity to highlight the prevalence of untreated endometriosis, a painful condition whereby tissue similar to uterine tissue grows outside the uterus.
Marian Harkin raised Laura’s case in the Dáil, calling for a review of legislation covering the sale of painkillers that contain codeine, adding that the issue of pain management was ‘woefully under-resourced’.
LAURA, 39, was one of the 155,000 women in Ireland who suffer from endometriosis, a condition that can cause excruciating pain, not to mention infertility, but like painful periods or cysts is often dismissed by doctors as an unavoidable consequence of womanhood.
According to The Endometriosis Association of Ireland young women with symptoms are as likely to be referred for mental health counselling as to a gynaecologist and sufferers frequently must wait up to nine years for a diagnosis.
Laura’s sister Carina says Laura wasn’t diagnosed with endometriosis until 2014, at which point her addiction had taken hold. She said it was easy for Laura, a former jockey, to hide her dependence.
Carina claims that towards the end Laura took a pack of painkillers a day. She argues that powerful painkillers should be available only on prescription.
Carina, perhaps inadvertently, makes a case for greater recognition of the devastating consequences of endometriosis and for a vastly improved service to treat the condition that led to Laura, a mother of two, dying at a relatively young age.
We don’t need any more poster girls for avoidable deaths caused by treatable diseases or misdiagnosed conditions. The least women deserve is a network of health centres dealing with everything from menopause to menstrual pain and every gynaecological condition in between. Let that be recognition for the difficult history between Irish women and the State that controlled their health and fertility.