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Found 813 results
  1. News Article
    A third of those with a women’s health condition have been made to wait three years or longer for a diagnosis, damning new research has revealed. The same study found half of those women took a year or more to be given their diagnosis. Srdjan Saso, a consultant gynaecologist and surgeon who works with King Edward VII’s Hospital, told The Independent: “A delayed diagnosis can mean a severe impact on quality of life both professionally and personally. “It can have a significant impact on a woman’s day-to-day life and hence needs to be addressed properly and seriously. From a more sinister perspective, in certain cases, it can be cancer and we are picking it up late.” Source: Independent, 14 February 2023 Read full story
  2. News Article
    Women suffering from chronic urinary tract infections (UTIs) are facing mental health crises after being “dismissed and gaslighted” by health professionals for years, according to a leading specialist. Daily debilitating pain has left patients feeling suicidal, with those in recovery describing lingering mental health problems “akin to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)”, said Dr Rajvinder Khasriya, an NHS consultant urogynaecologist at the Whittington Hospital in London. Patients have said they feel crippling anxiety over planning ahead to ensure there is always a toilet around, even after their condition has been controlled with treatment. Vicky Matthews, who searched for a diagnosis for three years after a recurrent UTI became chronic, said the condition caused a “gradual decline” in her mental health as medical professionals were unable to pinpoint what was causing her pain. "I questioned my pain. I questioned what was going on. I questioned whether it was actually real and that was a pretty awful thing to be dealing with on top of having physical pain,” the 43-year-old said, describing what she felt was “mental torture”. Read full story Source: I News, 12 February Further reading on the hub The clinical implications of bacterial pathogenesis and mucosal immunity in chronic urinary track infection
  3. News Article
    Plans to prevent one of the deadliest cancers for women in Jamaica have been significantly set back by the Covid pandemic, new figures reveal. The scheme to vaccinate schoolgirls against cervical cancer in Jamaica – which is the cancer with the second highest death rate in the Americas – began in 2018, but the Pan American Health Organization says inoculation rates fell to just 2.71% in 2021. This represents a drastic drop from the 2019 rate of 32%, and far from the WHO target of 90% by 2030. The cancer, which is curable if caught early, kills 22 in every 100,000 women in Jamaica. By comparison, in the UK the rate is 2.4 in every 100,000, and in Canada it is 2. Prevention of cervical cancer in Jamaica is also hindered by low rates of cervical screenings. “Women are afraid of the screening process and potential pain, but there is also a fear of a cancer diagnosis itself,” said Nicola Skyers of Jamaica’s Ministry of Health. “Some people just prefer not to know. But I also think that healthcare providers don’t offer screenings often enough. If a healthcare provider is really ‘selling’ the pap smear, more often than not the woman will choose to have it.” Health workers are forced to focus on cures rather than preventions amid staffing shortages and an overburdened healthcare system, said Skyers. “As a doctor, you won’t be encouraging every women you see to do a pap smear if you have 40 patients waiting outside.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 2 February 2023
  4. News Article
    Mesh campaigners claim Scotland's Health Secretary Humza Yousaf refused to meet them to hear their concerns. Patients blame surgical mesh products for leaving them disabled and in chronic pain and want the Scottish Government to hold an independent review into the use of the products. However, followihttps://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/mesh-campaigners-claim-humza-yousaf-29075491ng a debate in the Scottish Parliament earlier this month, the Health Secretary denied their request. Campaigner Roseanna Clarkin, of the Scottish Global Mesh Alliance, said Yousaf has refused several requests for meetings with campaigners spanning nearly two years. Roseanna, who has been left with crippling pain after mesh was used on her umbilical hernia in 2015, has blasted him for “ignoring” those affected by mesh procedures. From the late 90s until 2018, women in Scotland were treated with polypropylene mesh implants for stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse. In some, it caused severe pain and life-changing side effects. While the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review called for a pause in use of vaginal mesh, the products are not banned for all procedures. The Scottish Global Mesh Alliance were behind the petition calling for an independent review which was debated at Holyrood. They want to suspend the use of all surgical mesh and fixation devices while a review is carried out. Roseanna said: “Why do they assume mesh in another part of the body would respond differently and not cause extreme pain and serious infections?” Read full story Source: Daily Record, 29 January 2023
  5. News Article
    Ministers are considering putting a cancer warning on all breast implants a decade after women had ‘a cocktail of chemicals intended for mattresses’ put into their bodies. Experts and MPs are calling for tighter regulation and better support after the PIP faulty breast implant scandal left women – including breast cancer survivors – ‘suffering and dying in silence’. Health minister Maria Caulfield pledged on Monday to consider a so-called ‘black-box’ warning on breast implant packaging like in the US. It came during a debate on the faulty breast implant scandal which saw 47,000 British women given ‘ticking time bomb’ implants made by Poly Implant Prothese (PIP). PIP implants were outlawed in 2010 when they were revealed to be made with substandard silicone and up to six times more likely to rupture. Victims of the scandal have reported a wide range of serious side-effects as experts say they are linked to a raft of health problems including the new form of cancer. Anyone with a PIP implant can officially apply to have it removed by the NHS, but Labour MP Fleur Anderson said: ‘Many applications have been turned down, leaving women with a ticking time bomb in their body. ‘They are unable to afford to get their implants removed privately, are worried that they will rupture further, and are experiencing clear side-effects.’ The MHRA acknowledged the risk of cancer for all breast implants but said PIP implants are not at greater risk than any other. Read full story Source Mail Online, 31 January 2023
  6. News Article
    “I was worried it would grow and spread,” Charlotte Park, a breast cancer patient tells The Independent. “What happens if I hadn’t been that really pushy person? Sometimes I still go into a dark place and I think: I am so lucky to be here.” The 50-year-old, from Richmond in Yorkshire, found a lump in her breast in June 2020 and went straight to see her GP who informed her she would have to wait two weeks to see a specialist. After a fortnight of waiting, she started to panic and rang the clinic who said they were still working through referrals from four to six weeks prior to her referral. “I was getting frustrated and impatient by this point,” Ms Park recalls. “There was no leeway and they didn’t see if they could squeeze me in. I just felt frustrated. There was nothing I could do. It was all out of my hands. I was feeling teary.” Ms Park is one of thousands of women with breast cancer in England facing delays of weeks or months to see a specialist or receive treatment. Data, shared exclusively with The Independent, shows delays were substantially worse for those with breast cancer than other forms of cancer. In the end, Ms Park was forced to wait 25 days to see a specialist. The wait was “agony”, she said. It was difficult to definitively determine if the delays caused her cancer to grow, she noted. Her comments come in the context of thousands of women with breast cancer being forced to wait longer than the NHS-recommended time of two months to get treatment, in a situation branded “perilous” by healthcare professionals. Exclusive data shows only seven in ten women in England received treatment for breast cancer two months after getting an urgent doctor’s referral between January and November 2022. This amounts to just more than 16,500 women and is way below the NHS target for 85% of breast cancer patients diagnosed via an urgent GP referral to start their cancer treatment within two months of their GP visit. Read full story Source: The Independent. 31 January 2023
  7. News Article
    The UK is facing a “crisis point” in abortion provision, experts say, with rising demand and restricted access to care in many areas putting unprecedented pressure on struggling NHS services. Healthcare professionals described a “terrifying” state of affairs in which women are travelling hundreds of miles for appointments or waiting several weeks before they are seen. Dr Jonathan Lord, the director of MSI Reproductive Choices UK, a major provider of abortion services, told the Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast: “There is no doubt we are seeing absolutely unprecedented levels of demand at the moment. All providers are reporting they are busier than they have ever been.” Lord, who is also an NHS consultant gynaecologist, said the rise was being driven by “the economic downturn, the cost of living crisis and the ability to access good quality contraception” via GPs and sexual health services, which have been affected by the wider NHS crisis. Clare Murphy, the chief executive at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), previously said: “The pandemic, and the policies adopted by the government, have had a clear impact on women’s pregnancy choices.” Faced with “economic uncertainty and job insecurity”, women had been forced to make tough decisions, she said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 26 January 2023
  8. News Article
    Women’s healthcare in the UK is worse than that of China and Saudi Arabia, according to a global tracker. Poor efforts at prevention, diagnosis and treatment of health problems left the UK ranked lower than several countries with a troubling record on women’s rights. The research, which compared a wealth of data, found Britain fared worse than most comparable Western countries, including the United States, Australia, New Zealand, France and Germany. The UK was placed 30th out of 122 countries, in the 2021 Hologic Global Women’s Health Index published on Tuesday. The score – three points lower than when a similar exercise was carried out last year – places it on a par with Kazakhstan, Slovenia, Kosovo and Poland for women’s healthcare provision. Read full story Source: The Telegraph, 24 January 2023
  9. News Article
    Offering women annual breast cancer checks could save 1,000 lives a year, the Government’s women’s health tsar has said. Dame Lesley Regan said that the current system of screening women aged 50 to 70 once every three years was “not based on scientific evidence”. The UK’s breast screening programme has the longest gap between screens in the world. In the US, it is every one or two years, and in Europe, it is every two years. Dame Lesley, who is also a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Imperial College London, claimed that the decision to give women mammograms once every three years had been based on the budgets available in the Eighties, when checks were introduced. However, she said that more recent studies showed annual mammograms could save significant numbers of lives. On Tuesday, she told the launch of the Hologic Global Women’s Health Index in London: “If [someone] has a mammogram which is reported as normal today and she developed, for example, a precancerous lesion next month, she will then be waiting [until her next check], when it may well have become invasive, in the belief that she’s fine. “If you have yearly mammography – and I appreciate that’s an expensive resource – there are very good studies demonstrating how many lives you save.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 25 January 2023
  10. News Article
    A study of 10,650 females in the UK found those with a combined household income of up to £25,000 per annum are less health literate and are less likely to attend health screenings or vaccination invitations. In fact, 1 in 10 have never had health issues such as blood pressure or cervical cancer checked, compared to just 5% of those in a household earning more than £40,000 per annum. 15% of lower earners said they didn’t take up offers of preventative healthcare because they felt it was not needed. They are also the least able to talk to and understand healthcare professionals (72% compared to 81% of high-income households) and least likely to know where to access health information (79% compared to 89% of high-income households). Although 75% feel informed about what is needed to be healthy, this rises to 88% of those in high-income households. It also emerged 30% of low earners who experience daily pain, such as joint pain, backaches or headaches, have stopped work completely as a result, compared to just 10% of high-income households. Read full story Source: The Independent, 24 January 2023
  11. News Article
    "I got my cervical screening letter in November and I've been putting it off because I don't want to do it - I don't think any girl really wants it done to them." Elena Coley Perez is 26 and due to have her first cervical screening - or smear test - that examines the opening to your womb from your vagina. NHS records show 4.6 million women - or 30% of those who are eligible - have never been screened for cervical cancer or are not up to date with their tests. Women are sometimes too embarrassed to come forward or put it off because they are anxious, surveys have found. Struggling to book their tests due to GP backlogs will not help the situation, say charities. Elena has told the BBC she was already worried about having a smear test, and the difficulty she experienced in booking one put her off even more. "I got another letter in December so I went to book online because with my local GP you have to go through this long-winded form," she said. "I typed in cervical screening and nothing was coming up, so I ended up waiting 35 minutes on the phone to be told they had no appointments for the rest of the year and to phone back in the new year." Elena then tried again in January and was told there was no availability. "At this point I was like, 'what's the point?' - you're trying to do something that can hopefully prevent you from getting cancer and you get to the doctor's surgery and you just get a 'no' - it's really off-putting," she says. Read full story Source: BBC News, 25 January 2023 Further resources on the hub: For patients: Having a smear test. What is it about? (Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust) Cervical cancer symptoms (Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust) For staff: RCN guidance: Human papillomavirus (HPV), cervical screening and cervical cancer
  12. News Article
    An invitation to a cervical screening test upon your 25th birthday has become a necessary but often unwanted coming-of-age present. Despite years of education and advocacy about the benefits of screening, many women still do not attend. About 16 million women in the UK aged 25-64 are eligible for testing, but only 11.2 million took a test in 2022, the lowest level in a decade. There unfortunately remains a false narrative that there are good reasons to be nervous about cervical screening tests. In reality, the test is not physically painful for the vast majority of women, although it can be a bit uncomfortable. However, the test can be needlessly emotionally painful, and for no good reason. This is in part because some women go through the experience of sitting with legs spread apart and “private parts” out, and then hear the nurse call for “the virgin speculum” to be used. This is the archaic and unnecessarily sexualised term for the extra-small speculum. It should have no place being used in 2023, and it clearly creates feelings of vulnerability. Next week it is Cervical Cancer Awareness week, and campaigners are hoping to shine a light on barriers to cervical screening testing that must be removed. By creating feelings of vulnerability around testing, we are allowing cervical cancer to continue to go undetected. All women should be aware of the importance of attending their cervical screening test and do so with confidence, regardless of their sexual status. This will play a valuable role in reducing the mortality rate. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 19 January 2023 Further hub reading: Doctors’ shocking comments reveal institutional misogyny towards women harmed by pelvic mesh Misogyny is a safety issue: a blog by Saira Sundar Gender bias: A threat to women’s health (August 2020)
  13. News Article
    Complications after a procedure to treat IBS left Jennifer Hill in pain – and fighting for compensation. Earlier this year, an NHS inquiry found surgeon Anthony Dixon had caused women to “suffer harm” as a result of the mesh operations he carried out between 2007 and 2017. Dixon, who is now banned from practising in the UK, carried out hundreds of laparoscopic ventral mesh rectopexy (LVMR) operations for both the North Bristol NHS Trust and privately at Bristol’s Spire Hospital. Mesh is used to repair the pelvic floor, but the inquiry concluded that women should have been offered alternative treatments first. Jennifer Hill, from Herefordshire, is one of those women. She wishes she could go back in time and not have her mesh operation, which took place in May 2012. “I was totally unaware of the controversy surrounding mesh,” she says. “I still kick myself that I didn’t get a second opinion or ask more questions.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 11 January 2023
  14. News Article
    Fewer women who gave birth in NHS maternity services last year had a positive experience of care compared to 5 years ago, according to a major new survey. The Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) latest national maternity survey report reveals what almost 21,000 women who gave birth in February 2022 felt about the care they received while pregnant, during labour and delivery, and once at home in the weeks following the arrival of their baby. The findings show that while experiences of maternity care at a national level were positive overall for the majority of women, they have deteriorated in the last 5 years. In particular, there was a notable decline in the number of women able to get help from staff when they needed it. Many of the key findings from the survey include a drop in positive interactions with staff and lack of choices about the birth. Just over two-thirds of those surveyed (69%) reported 'definitely' having confidence and trust in the staff delivering their antenatal care. Results were higher for staff involved in labour and birth (78%). In addition, while the majority of women (86%) surveyed in 2022 said they were 'always' spoken to in a way they could understand during labour and birth, this was a decline from 90% who said this in 2019. The proportion of respondents who felt that they were 'always' treated with kindness and understanding while in hospital after the birth of their baby remained relatively high at 71%, however had fallen from 74% in 2017. Just under a fifth of women who responded to the survey (19%) said they were not offered any choices about where to have their baby. Also, less than half (41%) of those surveyed said their partner or someone else close to them was able to stay with them as much as they wanted during their stay in hospital. Read full story Source: Medscape, 13 January 2023
  15. News Article
    The Conservatives have been accused of “failing women” as analysis reveals gynaecology waiting times have trebled in the past decade, with more than 540,000 waiting for NHS care. NHS England data shows that in October 2012, the average waiting time to see a gynaecologist was 4.8 weeks. By October 2022, the most recent month for which figures are available, that figure had increased by 225% to 15.6 weeks. Many of the conditions experienced by women waiting to see a gynaecologist are progressive. Left untreated, they can need more complex or invasive surgery. Thousands are living in extreme pain as a result of the long waits, doctors, health experts and charities told the Guardian. The figures reveal that 38,231 women have been waiting more than a year. Ten years ago there were 15 women in England waiting longer than 12 months – and no one waiting two years. Today, 69 women have been waiting more than 24 months. Dr Ranee Thakar, the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said: “This new analysis adds to our own research that gynaecology waiting lists were outstripping other specialities long before the pandemic, and they continue to grow rapidly. “Shockingly, the fact we can now track this pattern back 10 years, shows how long overdue action is to address the unequal growth in waiting lists.” Thakar added: “Women’s health has been consistently deprioritised. Gynaecology waiting times are currently the longest we’ve seen since waiting list targets were introduced, leaving thousands of women with symptoms including extreme pain, heavy menstrual bleeding and incontinence.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 19 December 2022
  16. News Article
    In Kisii town, south-west Kenya, a rundown roadside building houses a pharmacy. Like many others in the area, the pharmacy doubles as a clinic. Lilian Kemunto (not her real name), a former surgical nurse, set it up after she retired in 2018. She mainly does health check-ups but has also offered female genital mutilation (FGM) services on request. Kemunto has performed cuts since the 90s, after receiving training in basic surgical techniques from male colleagues in the local hospital where she worked. She would do the cuts in the hospital at night, but it was risky, she says, because management didn’t approve. “They would tell us: ‘Just do it, but if you’re caught, you’re on your own.’” She preferred cutting girls in a private home, in the middle of the night, saying it was much easier: “By 6am, the girls are back in their own homes, like nothing happened.” In Kisii county, medicalisation is standard. Two out of three cases of cutting are performed by health practitioners, in contrast to much of the country, where 70% of FGM cases are performed by traditional practitioners. Kemunto says she tries to avoid mishaps, and at a minimum requires some anaesthesia, a surgical blade, sterile towels, and cleaning solution to proceed. She also claims to use a non-invasive procedure: a small incision of the clitoris that practitioners call a “signature”. Kisii’s FGM practice is considered less severe than other areas, and anti-FGM campaigners are concerned that there’s a growing acceptance of the practice as more safe, hygienic and cosmetic. FGM rates in Kenya have gone down significantly over the past decade. The country passed strong laws in 2011, imposed hefty fines on practitioners, and stepped up surveillance and enforcement. But medicalisation is posing a new challenge for the east African nation, which has a 15% medicalisation rate: one of the highest in Africa. Earlier this month, Kenyan president William Ruto backed the country’s chief justice who said that FGM “should not be a conversation we are having in Kenya in the 21st century”, and reiterated his administration’s commitment to eradicating the practice. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 15 December 2022
  17. News Article
    There is evidence of black, Asian and minority ethnic women being treated differently at the University Hospital of Wales, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) has said. HIW completed an inspection of UHW's maternity services in November 2022 and served an urgent improvement notice. A follow up inspection in March found continuing issues with patient safety. The inspectorate said in November that it identified issues which meant that patients were not consistently receiving an "acceptable standard of timely, safe, and effective care". Although "some improvements had been made in many areas... there remained significant challenges, and overall, the improvements were not progressing at the pace required", it said. The report added: "We found low morale amongst staff that we spoke to, and similar comments were received following a staff survey. Read full story Source: BBC News, 22 June 2023
  18. News Article
    Women who underwent mesh surgery were not given accurate information before the life-altering procedure, a case review has found. The study also said poor communication between patients and doctors led, in some cases, to mistrust. Medical notes were often misleading or did not detail the surgery that had occurred or its outcomes. The review spent two years looking at the cases of 18 women who received transvaginal mesh implants. It has now called for a comprehensive register to be set up to keep track of women who have had operations to remove mesh in Scotland, abroad and privately. The Transvaginal Mesh Case Record Review by Glasgow Caledonian University makes a series of other recommendations, including: Better aftercare following surgery Clear language so patients understand exactly what surgery is going to achieve. Read full story Source: BBC News, 21 June 2023
  19. News Article
    “Stop killing us,” protesters across Poland chanted this evening, demanding the legalisation of abortion, after reports reached the media of a pregnant woman’s death in a hospital in May. On Monday, Poland’s patients’ rights ombudsman, Bartłomiej Chmielowiec, said that the John Paul II hospital should have told 33-year-old Dorota Lalik that her life could be saved through an abortion. The hospital violated her rights by withholding the information, the ombudsman ruled. The woman died in the hospital in Nowy Targ, in the south of the country, on 24 May, three days after her admission. “No one told us that we had practically no chance for a healthy baby … The entire time they were giving us false hope that everything will be OK … that [in the worst case] the child will be premature,” Lalik’s husband told Polish media. “No one gave us the choice or the chance to save Dorota, because no one told us her life was at risk.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 June 2023
  20. News Article
    The NHS in England is "failing women", the government's women's health ambassador has said. Prof Dame Lesley Regan, appointed to support the Women's Health Strategy implementation, was speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live's Naga Munchetty. Last month, Munchetty, 48, revealed she had been diagnosed with the womb condition adenomyosis, after waiting years in severe pain. Dame Lesley said she wanted women to be able to self-refer to specialists. Women and girls should not have to seek "permission [to] go and have your crippling menstrual pain sorted out", she said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 6 June 2023
  21. News Article
    Women are finding it harder to access contraception than they did a decade ago, resulting in more unplanned pregnancies, the women’s health ambassador has said. They have been discouraged by bad experiences, a confusingly disjointed system and long delays for procedures such as the coil or implant insertion, according to Prof Lesley Regan, a leading gynaecologist who was appointed women’s health ambassador for England last year. She said that “destructive” changes made to the NHS commissioning system in England in 2012, which siloed GP surgeries from hospitals, were failing women. “If you’re not commissioned to deal with the problem, there’s no incentive to do a job properly … Contraception has got to be everybody’s business and up until this moment it’s been nobody’s responsibility and no one’s been accountable for it.” She added that the NHS preoccupation with cost was counterproductive as “contraception is the single most cost-effective intervention in healthcare”. She is pushing to get the progesterone-only pill, which took a decade to become available over the counter, made free in pharmacies so fewer women “fall through the cracks”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 5 June 2023
  22. News Article
    Women are waiting too long for abortions, according to a major review into a leading UK provider. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) review of the leadership at the abortion provider the British Pregnancy Advisory Service found there were “delays” in “investigating incidents”. The remains of some pregnancies were sometimes not stored properly and there were issues were record keeping, patient monitoring and safe care, the review found. The watchdog also noted “women did not always receive care in a timely way to meet their needs”. The health watchdog said: “In August 2021 we found significant concerns in we found that safe care was not being provided; ineffective safeguarding processes; incomplete risk assessments were not fully completed; observations were not monitored or recorded; records were not fully completed, clear or up to date.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 2 June 2023
  23. News Article
    A woman who had a hysterectomy has said she was discharged without sufficient information on its impact on her physical and mental health. Mechelle Davis, from County Down, said it was crucial women left hospital with appropriate medication and advice. Her operation involved removal of her womb, ovaries, fallopian tubes, and cervix. Ms Davis was 48 when she had her operation and said she had no option but to look online for advice, something she described as "unsatisfactory". "I had the operation in October 2022 and didn't go on HRT until the following February," she told BBC News NI. "Every woman who is going through the menopause - including surgically induced - needs support. In its online tool for clinicians, British Menopause Society advise that HRT plays a significant role in managing surgical menopause, especially in women under 45 - provided there are no contradictions such as personal history of hormone dependant cancer. It also adds that "all women undergoing surgical menopause should have counselling and be provided with information about the hormonal consequences of surgery and the role of HRT, both before surgery and before leaving hospital with clear communication to the primary care team." BBC News NI has spoken to other women who, after having a hysterectomy, were discharged without advice or a HRT prescription. Read full story Source: BBC News, 23 May 2023 Further reading on the hub: World Menopause Day 2022: Raising awareness of surgical menopause
  24. News Article
    Healthcare providers caring for pregnant patients in the months after the US Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v Wade have been unable to provide standard medical care in states where abortion is effectively outlawed, leading to delays and worsening and dangerous health outcomes for patients, according to an expansive new report. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling last year, individual reports from patients and providers have shed some light on the wide range of harm facing pregnant women in states where access to abortion care is restricted or outright banned. But a first-of-its-kind report from the University of California San Francisco captures examples from across the country, documenting 50 cases in more than a dozen states that enacted abortion bans within the last 10 months, painting a “stark picture of how the fall of Roe is impacting healthcare in states that restrict abortion,” according to the report’s author Dr Daniel Grossman. “Banning abortion and tying providers’ hands impacts every aspect of care and will do so for years to come,” he said in a statement accompanying the report. “Pregnant people deserve better than regressive policies that put their health and lives at risk.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 May 2023
  25. News Article
    A leading health panel in the USA has recommended the age at which women are regularly screened for breast cancer should be cut from 50 to 40. The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) said an extra 20 million women in their forties would benefit from a mammogram every two years. The change would save 20% more lives, according to the USPSTF, which has drafted the proposal in response to rising rates among middle-aged women. Currently, all women in the USA aged 50 to 74 are advised to get checked via a mammogram every two years. The number of new breast cancer cases is rising roughly two percent every year, John Wong, an internist and professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, who is on the task force, told the Washington Post. Dr Wong said: "It is now clear that screening every other year starting at age 40 has the potential to save about 20 percent more lives among all women, and there is even greater potential benefit for black women, who are much more likely to die from breast cancer." Read full story Source: Mail Online, 9 May 2023
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