‘No doctor in the country will touch you’: how the NHS is failing FGM survivors
At least 137,000 women in the UK live with the painful and traumatic consequences of cutting, but there is no provision for reconstructive surgery.
In May 2023, Shamsa Araweelo was in the A&E department of a London hospital in excruciating pain. It wasn’t the first time she had sought urgent treatment for the gynaecological damage caused by the female genital mutilation (FGM), or cutting, forced on her as a six-year-old. In fact, this was one of many such visits to emergency departments that Araweelo had made in her desperate attempt to find a surgeon who could help undo the damage done to her as a child and which has caused her so much pain and trauma as an adult.
Araweelo says that in A&E she was told that she had severe nerve damage and that it could be reversed through reconstructive surgery. But not in the UK.
“No doctor in the country will touch you, because you are an FGM survivor,” Araweelo says she was told. “I felt no compassion, no respect. Only in London did they tell me they wished they had the appropriate training to help me, and it breaks my heart. We are not valued in the UK.”
Current NHS rules state that if a health practitioner suspects a patient has been cut, they must report the case to the police and complete a safeguarding risk assessment to determine whether a social care referral is required. Guidance for GPs also recommends referrals for mental health issues related to FGM or referrals to uro-gynaecological specialist clinics.
Araweelo says that in all the years she has sought help she has never been offered any kind of support from medical professionals.
Source: The Guardian, 21 December 2023