Some medical professionals have suggested to teenage girls they should have a baby to “sort your endometriosis problem”, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has told the Dáil.
The Minister said she had met teenagers where “professionals in the medical system” suggested having a baby “because that would release the symptoms of endometriosis”.
Endometriosis occurs when tissue, similar to the lining of the womb, grows outside the womb, causing significant pain. It can also lead to infertility and affect mental and physical health.
Ms Carroll MacNeill said she would not have mentioned it in the House, “if it was a once-off case”.
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But “I have listened to women of different ages, including teenagers, who have been told, go and have a baby. That’ll fix it. Of course, it won’t.”
She had spoken to women with children for whom it had not fixed the problem and had met women for whom “it has come as a consequence of pregnancy”.
The Minister said: “Can we just put a line under that now that it never happens ever again in an Irish medical facility that a teenage girl is told to go and have a baby, that will ‘sort your endometriosis’.”
The issue was raised during health questions by Fianna Fáil TD Erin McGreehan who is a sufferer of the illness. “It is physically, mentally and emotionally draining. Some days I come into this House and I am in absolute agony.”
“It feels like a knife-fight is going on inside you quite often. So many women and girls have to tolerate that pain and agony day in, day out. It is chronic and absolutely exhausting.”
The Minister said awareness is very important as the issue is not understood and Ms McGreehan “knows that better than me”.
She added: “The impact on women’s participation in normal life has to be understood. Teenage girls cannot participate in sport and perhaps cannot sit their exams.
“There are women who have gone through university, doing phenomenal jobs in the workplace, taking significant periods off and are not able to explain or have that understood by their employer.”
“It is exceptionally painful. The more we try to explain what pain women have been going through, it will be better understood. It helps me to generate urgency around improvement in services.”
Ms McGreehan said “I am blessed that I have four children. I bucked the odds,” but she added that GP training and dedicated research funding is needed.
The Minister added that many women had successful surgeries in Ireland but it was not satisfactory that women had to travel abroad for more complex cases. However, additional colorectal surgeons are being recruited in Tallaght and Cork to enable more complex surgeries.
