‘I did start to feel suicidal’

Paris McNeilage remembers feeling like she couldn’t go on after eight months of non-stop agonising pain. Most days she couldn’t get out of bed.

“I did start to feel suicidal, not because I wanted to die, but because the pain was so unbearable,” 20-year-old McNeilage told the Herald.

In March last year, her GP referred her to see a gynaecologist at Counties Manukau DHB after experiencing painful periods since the age of 14. She was told the wait would be four months and she would get a letter in the mail confirming her appointment.

However, by the time June rolled around her referral was declined because of a lack of capacity, a letter seen by the

Herald showed.

“The pain was getting worse every week and I felt like I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel,” she said.

Her mother paid about $300 for her to see a private specialist, who suggested she change her address so she could be seen at Auckland DHB.

The private specialist, who suspected she had endometriosis, wrote a referral to the DHB and she was seen by another gynaecologist at the hospital that month. She then had to go on a waiting list for surgery.

“Because of lockdown, they said they couldn’t do the surgery until we reached level 2. It had already been months and we had no idea how much longer it would last,” she said.

After multiple attempts at contacting the hospital telling them how severe her pain was, only to be told there was nothing they could do, she called her GP in tears saying she couldn’t go on like this.

Her doctor made an urgent referral to the hospital and she was seen almost immediately.

The surgery revealed she did have endometriosis, which to McNeilage came as a huge relief as it meant she wasn’t crazy.

Her pain disappeared for a month but still flares up every now and again. She is grateful she can go for runs, work and socialise again.

She counts herself lucky she only had to wait eight months as she knows of others who have waited much longer. “I don’t know if I could have waited three years.”

A Counties Manukau DHB spokesman said it was very sorry for McNeilage’s experience with endometriosis and the severe impact it had on her daily life.

“The level of demand for public health services in the CM Health district is significant with gynaecology care, in particular, being in high demand,” he said.

The spokesman said currently they only had capacity to see priority 1 or 2 referrals, which were for potentially lifethreatening conditions such as cancer or emergency cases.