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Extend the growing season and keep your plants
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PREMIUM POP-UP GARDEN BAG
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This premium pop-up garden bag from Garden
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NEW
The
gender
health
gap
BY AMY PACKER
HOW often have you visited your
local surgery before you received
the correct diagnosis? Once?
Twice. Three times, perhaps?
A shocking new survey, seen
exclusively by the Daily Mirror, has
found that 476,000 British women
have had to visit their GP more than
11 times for a positive diagnosis, yet
only a third as many men have
experienced the same difficulty.
These new statistics, from a
survey carried out by specialist
lawyers Bolt Burdon Kemp, reveal a
worrying disparity, a gender health
gap putting women’s lives in danger.
Earlier this year, a study of seven
million patients over 21 years reported
that women are diagnosed later than
men across 700 diseases. It found
that a diabetes diagnosis for female
patients will come four-and-a-half
years later than one for a man, while
on average, women with cancer are
diagnosed two-and-a-half years later.
These delays are costing women
their lives, something Nicky Peel, 52,
from Brecon Beacons in Powys is all
too aware, after repeatedly having
lung cancer symptoms dismissed as
anxiety or the perimenopause.
“It all started in 2015 when I was
48,” she recalls. “I began waking up
with the feeling I couldn’t get enough
breath. My GP asked if I was
depressed or had anxiety and started
going down that route. They wanted
to put me on antidepressants. I did
challenge that because I’ve never
been anxious, I’ve certainly never
been depressed, but in the end, they
put it all down to being a women of
certain age... the perimenopause.”
It seems her doctors never
considered it might be lung cancer
because Nicky wasn’t at high risk. “I
went back and forth to the surgery
for well over a year,” she says. “Up
until then, I’d not been to the doctor
ever so I knew something was
wrong, but because I was a woman
of a certain age, you think OK,
perhaps they’re right. I continued to
have the symptoms but just left it. I
wish that I’d pushed more.”
Nicky was finally diagnosed with
lung cancer after almost 18 months
of repeatedly being told it was all in
her head. “I’m now stage 4,” she says.
“I’ve had progression to both lungs.
This illness is going to shorten my
life by 20, 30 years.”
So it is in no way an exaggeration
to say that disparity in treatment is
literally killing women, and statistics
support this. For example, when it
comes to heart attacks, differences
in care for women are estimated to
have contributed to at least 8,200
avoidable deaths in England and
Wales in the last decade.
British Heart Foundation-funded
research has shown that women
having a heart attack are
up to 50% more likely than
men to receive the wrong
initial diagnosis and are
less likely to get a pre-
hospital ECG.
Professor Jeremy Pearson,
Associate Medical Director
at the British Heart
Foundation, says “The
misconception that heart
attacks are a male issue
means women receive less
care than men at almost
every stage – from the moment they
report symptoms through to
aftercare – but more women die
from coronary heart disease than
breast cancer in the UK.”
A long-held myth that women
tend to suffer unusual or “atypical”
heart attack symptoms is believed to
be partly responsible, yet research
from the University of Edinburgh
revealed just last week there is no
difference: 93% of both sexes report
chest pain. “Women’s symptoms are
often mistaken for a panic attack,
and even after the event, women are
less likely to be offered cardiac rehab
- a vital stage of recovery,” says Prof
Pearson. “We need to change this
harmful misconception – which our
research has shown is simply not
true – because it is leading to
avoidable suffering and loss of life.”
When it comes to pain, women
are regularly told that something
very real is imagined or exaggerated- particularly when the issue is pelvic
or related to the menstrual cycle.
Faye Farthing of Endometriosis
UK says, “It takes, on average, 7.5
years or 10 GP appointments before
women are finally referred for
treatment and receive a diagnosis for
endometriosis. Women are all often
told that chronic pelvic pain is
“normal” or “in their head”.
Even when pain is acute rather
than long term, gender bias prevails.
One groundbreaking study – The
Girl Who Cried Pain – carried out at
the University of Maryland in 2001,
concluded that women
are less likely than men
to receive treatment for
pain and are more likely
to have physical
symptoms dismissed
as anxiety or stress.
Another looked at 1,000
patients who presented
at A&E departments
with severe abdominal
pain and found, on
average, women wait 65
minutes to be seen
whereas men wait 49 minutes. When
finally examined, women were less
likely to be given painkillers.
As someone whose concerns were
repeatedly dismissed, Nicky says
women must not be fobbed off. “The
best advice I could give women is to
persevere,” she says. “You know your
body better than anybody and if you
feel that something is not right
then push. Keep pushing until you
get answers.
“If you feel you’re being a nuisance
to your GP, so what? Be a nuisance.
Be the biggest nuisance you can be,
but just persevere.”
■ For more information about the
symptoms of lung cancer, go to
roycastle.org
UNFAIR
Nicky had
cancer
dismissed
as anxietyDisparity in
treatment is
killing women,
those having
heart attacks
are up to 50%
more likely to
get a wrong
diagnosisHEALTH