She said the funding would be better targeted at pain services or other healthcare. The Allan government has been looking to cut back hospital funding elsewhere.
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“We’re not going to fix people with laparoscopies,” Grover said. “But in this current era there’s a lot of pressure: You have to have your laparoscopy, you have to get your diagnosis. No, what women in pain actually need is for their pain to be managed, whatever the cause is.”
In a submission to the Victorian inquiry, also provided to The Age, the faculty said underinvestment in women’s pain services had reached a critical level that amounted to a postcode lottery. Some regions completely missed out.
Grover, a member of the faculty’s advisory group that developed the professional statement, understood many women had suffered pain that was long dismissed. It was no surprise they sought out an endometriosis diagnosis that legitimised what they were going through, she said.
“Now they’ve got a real reason for their pain,” she said. For the about 50 per cent of women in pain that are found to have no lesions, Grover said they have endured an invasive surgery that has its own risks and invalidates their pain even further.
She said some women sought out and were offered repeated laparoscopies.
“I know there are people who have endometriosis who are going to be distressed by us saying ‘it’s not all endo’. And I am distressed that they are being offered short-term operative procedures which take all of the control out of their hands.”
Grover said there was more evidence the contraceptive pill or Mirena helped than a laparoscopy. She said sleep support or physiotherapy could also manage pain.
The faculty said surgery could still help in select cases but that further research was needed to work out who those patients were.
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Leah Filley has had her share of dismissive GPs since her debilitating pain started at age 13.
From 14, she was told having a baby could help. But when she did fall pregnant in her 30s, the pain was so bad she needed crutches. One GP refused her request for a medical certificate and tried to prescribe her antidepressants instead, accidentally inspiring her to make a documentary about her experiences.
Filley was recently diagnosed with fibromyalgia at age 37 having spent years believing it must be endometriosis. A laparoscopy in 2018 uncovered no lesions.
Still, she said it was wonderful the condition had so much awareness.
“But I think it excludes a lot of us who don’t have that diagnosis. It puts you back in that category of saying, ‘I’ve got really bad period pain’, which just feels like nothing,” Filley said. “When you’re told you don’t have endometriosis, you find yourself in a wasteland.
“It says so much, doesn’t it, that to be legitimate, we have to have something you can see. So I think that speaks to the female experience too, of not being believed.”
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