Debate contribution: Women’s Health Strategy

Debate contribution by Mrs Linda Dillon on 16 March 2026.

MLA

Mrs Linda Dillon

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

16 March 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Women’s Health Strategy

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5449087

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I will start by thanking the proposer of the motion. Women and girls across the North are being failed by our health system. Women's symptoms, pain and experiences have been ignored, dismissed and minimised. Many women have had to fight simply to be heard, to be believed and to receive the care that they need. The absence of a comprehensive life-course approach to women's health exacerbates those disparities. The continued delay in delivering a women's health strategy or action plan, for that matter, means that the North remains the only jurisdiction across Ireland and Britain without a strategic funded plan to ensure that women and girls consistently receive appropriate care. The impact of that inequality is becoming increasingly clear. Members have referred to the British Heart Foundation report that states that women are more likely to experience delayed diagnosis following a heart attack, are less likely to receive treatment and, as a result, are more likely to needlessly die. We need to be clear about that: it is not just that women die but that they die needlessly. Their lives could be saved. Their families' trauma could be prevented. The inequalities are not limited to heart disease but reflect a wider pattern across our health system, where women's symptoms are too often dismissed and minimised. We see that in the long waiting lists for red-flag referrals to breast services and gynaecology. We see it in the failure to diagnose or effectively treat conditions such as endometriosis, which leaves women and girls living with severe, life-impacting pain that affects their education, work and fertility and, in many cases, causes lasting damage to their organs, bodies and mobility — their ability to move around freely. Menopause is another example of how women's health concerns can be misunderstood or dismissed. With it, we see the two extremes. The first is that women are told that their symptoms are "just the menopause", and that they will just have to live with it. In some cases, that has meant serious underlying conditions being missed or diagnosed far too late. In other cases when women are experiencing menopause, they are misdiagnosed with anxiety or depression. They are prescribed medications that they neither need nor want and that do not address their symptoms. Women deserve to have their symptoms properly examined and correctly diagnosed. In recent years, trust in women's health services has been damaged, as Diane Dodds mentioned. The cervical screening scandal caused enormous distress for many women and their families. It caused deaths. At this point, it is worth mentioning the need for awareness and education campaigns on women's health. I acknowledge the work of Stephen McCormick, who lost his precious wife, Julie. Stephen is campaigning for the Health Department to implement a public awareness campaign on the symptoms of ovarian cancer. He is right: people need to recognise the seriousness of their symptoms, especially when we have a health system that does not prioritise women's health, because we need confidence and information to advocate for ourselves and on behalf of the women around us whom we love.

I know that the Minister will say that publicity campaigns cost money, and that is true. However, Liz Kimmins, the Infrastructure Minister, recognised the importance of publicity campaigns to saving lives on our roads. I ask the Minister to give the same priority to saving the lives of our women. Other jurisdictions, including England, Scotland, Wales and the South of Ireland, have recognised the need for dedicated women's health strategies. Women here should not be left behind. Primary care will be central to improving women's health and ensuring that women can access care earlier and closer to home. At the same time, we have to recognise the challenges of delivering highly specialised services to a relatively small population and with a small workforce. In some areas of women's healthcare, there are clear opportunities to strengthen cooperation on an all-Ireland basis in order to ensure that women have access to the expertise and specialist services that they need. Women are dying due to missed or delayed diagnosis and a misunderstanding of symptoms, leaving behind devastated families. Those women are our sisters, mummies and daughters. They deserve to live a full life, and we need to see an end to the unnecessary deaths. We support developing a comprehensive, fully costed and time-bound women’s health strategy in consultation with women, healthcare professionals and stakeholders; taking a life-course approach to women's health; and, first and foremost, listening to women. The previous contributor talked about the Derry Well Women centre and how it has been so helpful when it comes to the development of what will hopefully be a good women's health strategy. However, when I was a teenager, there were well women clinics in many of our big towns. I am far from a teenager now, and all of those well women clinics are gone. We have gone 30 years in reverse, so do the maths: I am nearly 50.

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

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 01:21 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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