Debate contribution: Endometriosis Care

Debate contribution by Ms Cheryl Brownlee on 29 September 2025.

MLA

Ms Cheryl Brownlee

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

29 September 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Endometriosis Care

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5139444

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I welcome the opportunity to speak on such a deeply important issue: how the lived experience of women and girls in Northern Ireland who are suffering with reproductive health conditions like polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and endometriosis is being routinely dismissed and neglected. Today, I want to tell a story about one of my constituents, Sophie, who has gone through years of physical pain, emotional distress and institutional failure. Sophie is one of many, but we know that her words speak for thousands. From the age of 18, she knew that something was not right. She was dealing with irregular periods, painful periods and extremely heavy periods. She went to her GP again and again asking for answers, only to be told that she was on a waiting list, but she then found out that she had never been referred. In 2021, after scraping together enough money to go private, she was finally diagnosed with PCOS, but, by then, the pain had worsened. Year after year, she ended up presenting at A&E multiple times in agony, but she was met with comments like, "Is it just a bad period?", or, "Have you tried a hot-water bottle or a warm bath?". She was truly heartbroken and felt that there was nowhere else to turn. After her diagnosis, a consultant suggested further investigation, but, frankly, she just could not afford it. When she finally got private healthcare through her job, she was told by a doctor that she would not be considered for treatment — quote — "while you are this obese". That beautiful girl was 12 stone. At her most desperate, she asked to have her ovaries removed and was told no, because she was not married. She tried everything to be taken seriously, including weight-loss injections. She lost four and a half stone, went back to the same doctor and was still turned away. She was offered the pill and sent out the door. She saved again to go back to her original private doctor and begged for investigative surgery, because she feared that she had endometriosis. The doctor was not convinced, but, to give her peace of mind, he agreed. She had surgery, and the surgeon confirmed that she had been right all along. Her endometriosis was extensive and aggressive. It was so severe, in fact, that her internal organs were fusing together. She went through years of pain and years of being dismissed and gaslit by a system that should have helped her. That was not a failure of communication; it was a failure of care. Sophie is not standing alone. She is sharing her story and has built a community of women across Northern Ireland who have gone through exactly the same thing. They have been dismissed, ignored, told that they were overreacting and even told that it was anxiety or depression and to get therapy instead of receiving real medical care. Many have waited six, eight or even 10 years for that diagnosis. Minister, we all feel that that is unacceptable. Women and girls in Northern Ireland deserve better. They deserve access to timely, accurate information about their bodies. They deserve medical staff who understand their conditions and do not treat pain as an exaggeration or a nuisance. They deserve care that is based on need, not weight, status or stereotypes. That failure is not only a personal cost; it has wider economic consequences. Women are missing school, university and work. Many are forced to reduce hours or leave employment entirely, and the financial barrier to private healthcare creates inequalities in who gets heard and who does not. I really welcome the beginning of the real conversations about how we can educate people — medical professionals and our communities — about the conditions. My constituent is eager to meet and discuss how she can create a model of practice and a framework that can guide how health is treated in both education and healthcare, because no woman should be told, "You are too fat for treatment", no woman should ever be told that she cannot have surgery because she is not married, and no woman should have to beg to be believed about her pain. I welcome the fact that we are discussing this today, and I hope that it is only the beginning. Women in Northern Ireland have waited long enough.

726 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:18 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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