According to Endometriosis UK, Endometriosis costs the UK economy £8.2bn a year in treatment, loss of work and healthcare costs.
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00:00But there's massive medical misogyny. And there is a statistic, it takes a woman up to 10 GP visits to be listened to, it takes a man one, which it really kind of sinks in how much medical misogyny there is. And I think I've personally suffered a lot of it.
00:18There's been times where I've gone to A&E in absolute agony and ended up having things like pelvic inflammatory disease. And it's kind of this stigma and this stereotype where women are being dramatic, they're being over emotional, they should just put up and shut up and just get on with it.
00:38And I think that really spans across the clinical settings from some medical professionals, but it spills into workplaces if you're in education. And I think for us as a charity, we're really trying to change that narrative because there are so many generations that are programmed that way to think.
00:58And we went years and years and years, being told that all of these things we're experiencing were completely normal, and we should just get on with it. And it impacted our education, it's impacted our work, our family life, everything, every element, and who's holding that accountability and responsibility for essentially years that are taken from people.
01:21According to Endometriosis UK, endometriosis cost the UK economy £8.2 billion a year in treatment, loss of work, and healthcare costs.
01:31When it comes to women's health issues in general, recently it was found that medical misogyny is prevalent within the healthcare sector.
01:38Members of Westminster's Women and Equalities Committee concluded that women with conditions, including heavy periods, and endometriosis, are being dismissed when they ask for help.
01:50There's such a wide range of symptoms. And some people may have a couple, some people may have majority of them. And I think that's really important, and is a little bit of a misconception is that you don't have to have lots of symptoms to have endometriosis, people suffer with different ones. So for me, I really, really suffered and still suffer with erratic bowels is one of the abdominal pain as well.
02:15I think common misconceptions is that a pregnancy can cure endometriosis, which it doesn't, that hormonal treatment can cure endometriosis, but hormonal treatment is trying to manage symptoms for people.