Women’s health advocate says landmark report on pain confronts centuries of healthcare bias

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Victorian government has released a landmark report into women's pain, the first of its kind in Australia. It found 90% of the 1,300 respondents had experienced pain which lasted for more than a year, with a third saying they were in constant pain. Sally Hasler is the CEO of Women's Health Victoria and was on the advisory panel for this inquiry. She says the report confronts centuries of bias that has been built into Australia’s healthcare system.

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00:00Well, the report tells us what women have been saying for years.

00:07It confronts centuries of bias that has been built into the health system.

00:12But what's important is this is a really significant moment that we need to act on.

00:17Those thousands of women that have come forward and shared their stories

00:21deserve a response that really addresses the structural inequity

00:26that is built into the healthcare system.

00:29The report shows that of the people that responded,

00:3395% of women sought assistance for their pain.

00:37But as you said, Mel, 71% of those women reported feeling ignored or dismissed.

00:45And this report, which as we've said is the first of its kind in Australia,

00:49it sort of goes beyond just pain, right?

00:53It's also found a string of issues relating to the fact that

00:57a lot of what we know about medicine, as you sort of touched on there,

01:01is based on Caucasian male biology.

01:05Can you take us through what that means and what the impact of that has been?

01:09Well, absolutely. Like I said, it is based on a health system that has baked in gender bias.

01:15And that affects the way that medicine is understood and the way that symptoms are managed.

01:21That bias reflects the way that health professionals are educated and trained to provide care.

01:25And it also reflects the way that healthcare is funded and the way the health system operates.

01:31And so that broader inequity impacts on individuals' experiences of care.

01:37And we know at Women's Health Victoria that sex and gender impacts healthcare.

01:43And that if we don't specifically design care that reflects the bias and inequity that people experience,

01:49then unfortunately and tragically, as you've seen through the courageous stories in this report,

01:55it can lead to worse health outcomes.

01:59Another thing which struck me in this report was the women in regional and remote areas.

02:05Of course, we know, you know, face the obvious barrier of additional time and distance to actually seek help.

02:14But can you take us through some of the particular challenges faced by women outside of major centres when it comes to seeking help?

02:22Yeah, this report is a really important opportunity to listen to rural and regional voices.

02:2841% of respondents live in rural and regional areas.

02:32And they reported additional barriers to care.

02:36So longer wait times for a GP, higher cost barriers, like you said, needing to travel for care,

02:43or maybe an unavailability of healthcare providers in their area.

02:48So, for example, one of the respondents to the report shared that she had been to her GP experiencing pain

02:54and her GP had recommended that she see a gynaecologist, but there's no gynaecologist in her area

03:00and she needed to travel hundreds of kilometres to Melbourne to access that care.

03:04And we saw last week, for example, through the release of the Healthy Women, Healthy Gippsland report,

03:09that women living in Gippsland, as an example, are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer

03:15and tragically more likely to die.

03:18And so it shows that geography compounds with those experiences of gender inequality

03:25to really provide additional barriers to care, which makes the recommendations even more critical

03:32for women living in rural and regional areas.

03:35Yeah, and just finally, what were some of the recommendations that you'd like to see implemented?

03:40What are some of the changes that you'd like to see as a result of this report?

03:44Well, we need to start at the very beginning, and that means that medical research needs to include considerations

03:49of sex and gender, because that is the basis for care that clinicians are practising around

03:55and the way that the system operates.

03:56So we need to make sure that medical research is fair in the way it's conducted.

04:01Another really important call from this recommendation is to make sure that GPs have adequate time

04:10to provide consultations for women that are experiencing chronic conditions and chronic pain.

04:16And so Women's Health Victoria is calling for a review of time-tiered Medicare funding

04:22to make sure that longer consults are adequately funded.

04:26And lastly, we know that priority populations, so people living in rural areas,

04:32people that may not speak English, people that are experiencing additional barriers to care,

04:37have more difficulty accessing healthcare.

04:40And so we're calling for system navigation and support to provide health information

04:46and referral for women to access the right health services.

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