Naga Munchetty was allegedly told by NHS doctors to “suck it up” after she experienced extreme menstrual problems, the BBC presenter revealed to a committee of MPs.
She was giving evidence, along with TV personalityVicky Pattison, to the Women and Equalities Committee as part of an inquiry into women’s reproductive health.
Munchetty had revealed earlier this year that she was diagnosed with adenomyosis. She had called the process of being diagnosed “so frustrating”.
On Wednesday, she told the committee that she experienced debilitating symptoms, including excruciating pain and heavy menstrual bleeding. She said that the attitude of the GPs had been: “Those are your [treatment] options – and if they don’t work for you, then suck it up.”
She said she had been told since she was a teenager that “you’re normal” and “everyone goes through this”. She said there was a constant, “You’re fine, everyone else is putting up with this, why can’t you?”
Munchetty acknowledged that she is “fortunate enough to be able to have private healthcare”, and that it was the “only time I felt I could sit there and take time and force an issue, force understanding, force explanations from my gynaecologist and not feel bad that I was taking up more than 10 minutes of my GP’s time because there was a queue of people in the waiting room”.
Ms Pattison, who was diagnosed with pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder [PMDD], told the committee: “GPs, anyone within the NHS, any medical professionals at all, they just need to start to take women seriously when they say something’s wrong.”
“I know loads of brilliant women and I don’t feel like we’re the weaker sex at all. I feel like we’re brilliant. I feel like we’re strong and powerful and we put up with a lot more than blokes do most of the time.
“If we have got ourselves up and gone into a doctor’s, a hospital, whatever, to say something’s wrong, I feel like the least people can do is listen to her and believe that there is something wrong.”
She said there needs to be “better knowledge, better understanding” about health issues affecting women.
Munchetty added: “No woman says she’s in pain unless she is in real pain. No woman says she is anxious unless she is really anxious. No woman wants to appear weak or appear incapable until she really is, until she can’t cope anymore. And it shouldn’t be that way.”
She added that “there’s not enough training, there’s not enough focus in the medical profession on women”.
The chair of the committee, Caroline Nokes, promised it would issue guidance to NHS and schools to tackle “woeful misunderstood, ignorance, stigma and shame” surrounding women’s health, the Guardian reported.
