UK: Daily Mail: Half of women fear the NHS treats their health as a 'second-class issue'

JellyBabyKid

JellyBabyKid

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Half of women fear the NHS treats their health as a 'second-class issue', damning poll reveals

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13959565/amp/half-women-nhs-health-second-class-poll.html

Archive link to avoid giving the Mail clicks https://archive.ph/IBv32

"A third of women said they experience pain that affects their everyday lives, yet four in ten (42 per cent) said the NHS did not provide adequate pain management."

Shocked but not surprised. Actually, I am surprised the figures not higher.

How do we change attitudes?
 
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JellyBabyKid said:
Half of women fear the NHS treats their health as a 'second-class issue', damning poll reveals

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13959565/amp/half-women-nhs-health-second-class-poll.html

Archive link to avoid giving the Mail clicks https://archive.ph/2024.10.15-07545.../half-women-nhs-health-second-class-poll.html

"A third of women said they experience pain that affects their everyday lives, yet four in ten (42 per cent) said the NHS did not provide adequate pain management."

Shocked but not surprised. Actually, I am surprised the figures not higher.

How do we change attitudes?
Click to expand...
Yes

but it’s also about the power others realise they’ve been given to make people second third and for us fourth class on the ‘whose needs vs wants come above the other scale’ they realise they’ve been handed

and that human nature can’t seem to resist the chance to put the foot on the neck when the opportunity has been lined up as if humanity and survival is a zero sun game
 
bobbler said:
and that human nature can’t seem to resist the chance to put the foot on the neck when the opportunity has been lined up as if humanity and survival is a zero sun game
Click to expand...

And yet psychology tells us that we are social creatures and altruism arose because we were concerned with the good of the tribe.

I am amazed how often the default setting is disbelief, especially when so many times this has been proved to be both wrong and harmful
 
My emphasis...

JellyBabyKid said:
"A third of women said they experience pain that affects their everyday lives, yet four in ten (42 per cent) said the NHS did not provide adequate pain management."
Click to expand...

In many cases pain relief is not provided at all. The idea that women exaggerate and lie every time they see a doctor seems to be buried deep into the psyche of many doctors I've met. A doctor I met in my teens (but I'm not sure which one) appears to have recorded that I'm a drug-seeker or some other insulting conclusion on my medical records. That conclusion seems to be the first thing a doctor sees on my medical records ever since, whether in the days of paper, or now, on computer. If I mentioned pain I would be scowled at and the whole tone of the appointment would change and the appointment is hurriedly finished. In my more whimsical moments, I have imagined that my medical records have a score kept - appointments when I mentioned pain and those when I didn't with the words at the top of the page saying "Do not trust this woman".

:mad:
 
JellyBabyKid said:
Of more relevance is; why is the NHS (and DWP) default setting to automatically disbelieve those trying to use their services in the first instance and how do we change that?
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You remove the financial incentive on individuals to cut corners. GPs get paid to disbelieve people have any serious disease, including cancer. Obstetricians get paid to be in their private rooms and assume NHS mums will be fine.
 
I think Invisible Women goes a long way to explaining it. Everything is default male. If you don’t fit the default, you’re an exception. Systems are built on this, for years it was accepted. It’s just like the myth that having a coil doesn’t hurt and doesn’t require pain relief or any sort of recovery. You get told off for screaming and crying and “upsetting the other patients” no bother that it wasn’t an appropriate treatment for me, I wasn’t prepared, it wasn’t done in line with manufacturers guidance etc etc. but that doesn’t really matter, it’s just a coil. Women have them all the time. See also babies, periods, pain, mental health issues, I could go on.
 
Kitty said:
That would help but the biases may remain, such as differences in the response to men's and women's pain, and to white women's and black women's pain.
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I would like to have some evidence for this. When I had the worst pain known to man - renal colic, said to be worse than childbirth, a nurse thought I was a silly wimp when I pointed out that the entonox machine she had offered me was actually turned off. She insisted it was fine despite nothing coming out of it.

Men aren't supposed to be bothered by pain at all. I am pretty sure they get even less sympathy than women if they are.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
I would like to have some evidence for this. When I had the worst pain known to man - renal colic, said to be worse than childbirth, a nurse thought I was a silly wimp when I pointed out that the entonox machine she had offered me was actually turned off. She insisted it was fine despite nothing coming out of it.

Men aren't supposed to be bothered by pain at all. I am pretty sure they get even less sympathy than women if they are.
Click to expand...


Doesn't "men-flu" exist in the UK?
Canadian research some years ago; Women got tranquillizers, men got painkillers for the same kind of pain.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
I would like to have some evidence for this. When I had the worst pain known to man - renal colic, said to be worse than childbirth, a nurse thought I was a silly wimp when I pointed out that the entonox machine she had offered me was actually turned off. She insisted it was fine despite nothing coming out of it.

Men aren't supposed to be bothered by pain at all. I am pretty sure they get even less sympathy than women if they are.
Click to expand...
We don’t get sympathy we get called hysterical and referred to counselling (if we’re lucky) usually just get laughed at or told to lose weight or the classic “have a baby”
 
MrMagoo said:
We don’t get sympathy we get called hysterical and referred to counselling (if we’re lucky) usually just get laughed at or told to lose weight or the classic “have a baby”
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We don't even get that amount of interest. We just get eyes going upwards and out the door.

At least you get some faux sympathy. We just get disdain when we ask for a prostate test (when a week later the biopsy shows Gleason stage 4+3 invasive disease).
 
JellyBabyKid said:
The question remains; how do we change the system so that disbelief isn't the default response to anyone ?
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More training on empathy. Knowing all about medical facts isn't enough to become a good doctor.
Not only training for students, but for all docs.

And prejudice in all forms should be looked at too. (Reddit communications between docs can be painful to watch)
 
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