Doctor tells woman ‘it’s not as if you’re dying’ after miscarriage pain

A woman with endometriosis was “gaslighted” by doctors over severe period pain for more than a decade and told by one doctor “It’s not as though you’re dying” after suffering a miscarriage.

Jenny Ockona-Mensah, has spent decades being “fobbed off” by NHS services over “consuming” period pain and was just 20 years old when doctors suggested her only options were to get pregnant or go on the pill.

The London therapist’s story comes as the organisers of a poll warned women are being treated as “second class” citizens by the NHS.

A poll of 2,000 women found more than a third have been forced to take time off work due to gynaecological conditions. Of those, more than 41% were off work for three months.

The findings indicated 42% cent of women who suffer pain that impacts their daily lives said the NHS does not provide adequate pain management.

Praful Nargund, Labour councillor and trustee for Create Health Foundation, which carried out the survey, told The Independent: “The scale of this problem is staggering. It’s unacceptable.

“I’m both astonished and terrified at the same time, astonished that in 2024 we accept this level of problem for 51 per cent of the population and terrified because of what this means for my wife, for my two young daughters, for my mum. You know that they will have a worse experience of healthcare throughout their life, the way women’s health services are at the moment.”

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Source: The Independent, 10 October 2024