Victorian health minister Mary-Anne Thomas is warning doctors to brace themselves for the results of Australia’s first inquiry into women’s pain, saying it revealed “a misogynist view that pain is part of women’s burden”.
Thomas said she was shocked to learn what more than 13,000 women and girls who shared stories with the inquiry experienced, and that many had serious pain dismissed or had been “gaslit” by being told they had mental health issues.
Women testified saying things such as, “I just want to get off the merry-go-round of antidepressants and iron infusions” prescribed for pain.
Thomas said some women felt they were treated as drug addicts when they asked for relief. She was challenged by researchers for suggesting misogyny may be a factor the gender-pain gap.
In its submission to the 11-month inquiry, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation included incidents of health workers having their own pain treated dismissively and witnessing women receiving gender-biased treatment.
It received more than 800 responses in four days to a member survey on women’s pain.
Of 89 per cent of nurses and midwives who had experienced acute pain, two-thirds felt “dismissed by health professionals”, and 53 per cent said the response was negative.
A nurse on a mixed specialty surgical ward said gynaecology patients who describe “10/10 pain” were given paracetamol as a first-line treatment to “wait and see if it helps”, while other surgical patients “are given two to three lines of analgesia charted immediately at any instance of pain”.
Another told of “multiple colleagues judging young female patients’ subjective pain scores, calling them ‘precious’, ‘princess’ or ‘overreacting’.”
The inquiry is due to hand its recommendations to the Victorian Women’s Health Advisory Council by December and will be released in early 2025.
Source: ‘Precious, princess’: Health minister warns GPs to brace for women’s pain inquiry findings