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.
04:51lubbretain montraff
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