Scottish Lib Dem Women, the official Lib Dem organisation representing women, took a motion to Scottish Conference at the weekend which called on the Scottish Government to improve women’s health care.

Medical misogyny refers to the gender bias or discrimination women can experience when accessing healthcare.

Instances of medical misogyny include the dismissal of pain as “normal”, a lack of research into women’s healthcare and a general lack of understanding among many GPs.

Medical misogyny can lead to longer waiting times for gynaecological care, which have increased by more than 250% over the last seven years in Scotland.

The motion called on the Scottish Government to:

• Launch a public awareness campaign for both medical professionals and the wider public to remove the stigma faced by women seeking help for their reproductive health.
  Improve access to diagnosis, end dismissal of symptoms and the normalisation of pain faced by women.
• Tackle postcode lotteries of care by enhancing understanding of conditions, including but not limited to, endometriosis, the menopause, polycystic ovary syndrome, hyperemesis and ectopic pregnancies.
• Embed a better understanding within the NHS of the effects of reproductive health conditions on period poverty, women’s mental health and women in the workplace.
• Vastly reduce waiting times for referrals and then treatment, especially in gynaecology and urology.
• Improve training and standards across NHS services in Scotland.
• Increase research into reproductive health over a women’s life course, moving away from the belief that this is a ‘niche’ area.

The motion is part of the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ broader strategy to tackle misogyny and Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG).

The debate was emotional, thoughtful and powerful as women shared their sometimes awful experiences in accessing healthcare.

You can watch it here.

Christine Jardine said:

There are too many women who have effectively been told to put up and shut up when accessing healthcare.

There is an insidious and entrenched prejudice around women’s pain, and the cost can be devastating. It can lead to conditions being undiagnosed, to misdiagnosis and, ultimately, to an eroding confidence amongst women about the point of reporting symptoms at all.

The SNP have only added fuel to the fire: by mismanaging our NHS over two decades, they have made it much tougher to deliver the care that women need.

Progress on the women’s health plan has been slow; ministers need to step up and get on with making plans a reality.

Women deserve a system that they can trust and depend on. To build that system, we should be moving heaven and earth to increase awareness and understanding of women’s healthcare, ramp up training and research, and end the damaging waits for diagnosis and treatment.

Kirsten Herbst-Taylor from Dumfries and Galloway proposed an amendment calling for annual gynaecological screening for women. She has been living with Stage 4 Ovarian Cancer and she told Conference:

When I was diagnosed during a routine check-up at my local GP surgery, the disease was already advanced. I underwent extensive surgery and six rounds of chemotherapy.

I am here today because of the extraordinary skills of the surgical team at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh — Dr Pete Sanderson and Professor Stephen Wigmore — and because of the expertise and steady care of my oncologist, Dr Rachel Nirsimloo.

We are incredibly fortunate to have such dedication and excellence within NHS Scotland. I am deeply grateful for the treatment I have received.

But gratitude for treatment must sit alongside urgency about prevention.

In Scotland, around 600 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer every year. It is the most lethal gynaecological cancer. Across the UK, fewer than half of women are diagnosed at an early stage.

Stage at diagnosis changes everything.

When ovarian cancer is detected at Stage I, around 95 percent of women survive five years or more. At Stage IV, that figure falls to around 15 percent.

That is not a marginal difference. It is the difference between life expectancy measured in decades and life expectancy measured in years.

We have national screening programmes for breast and cervical cancer. We do not have one for ovarian cancer. Instead, we rely on women recognising vague symptoms and primary care identifying a rare disease early enough to alter outcomes.

That is not a systematic early detection strategy.

I am asking this conference to support the establishment of a national screening programme for ovarian and other gynaecological cancers, and to give women the entitlement to an annual gynaecological check-up, including ultrasound where clinically appropriate.

Even at Stage 4, there is hope. Treatment advances mean many women now live for years with good quality of life. But earlier diagnosis reduces the need for aggressive treatment and dramatically improves survival.

With survival at around 95 percent when ovarian cancer is detected early, and only around 15 percent at the most advanced stage, the evidence is clear: early detection saves lives. A national screening programme and annual gynaecological checks are not optional — they are necessary.

Let’s make this a reality.

Central Scotland candidate Lucy Smith told of her experience of endless visits to the doctor with abdominal pain and being dismissed. After too long, she was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. Lucy’s experience was almost identical to that of someone I love very much and it is infuriating that both of those young women had to experience years of hell.

Beatrice Wishart MSP talked about the importance of training future doctors in these issues – asking how many women had been fitted with IUDs without pain relief, being told they would experience only slight discomfort.

Jacquie Bell spoke very movingly of her traumatic birth experience and how the refusal of her doctor to consider home birth meant that her child never had any siblings.

While my own childbirth was not nearly as traumatic, I told the Conference how I basically ran away and hid for a few hours after a male obstetrician told a midwife without reference to me to just break my waters and get on with it. I also added that every time I went to the doctor after I turned 40, no matter what with, it was put down to the menopause. And now I come to think of it, that might be why it took 3 months to get my Glandular Fever diagnosis back in 2009.

Amanda Clark talked about how hard it was to get breast screening despite her worrying family history and spoke on behalf of Cllr Fiona Corps who is currently undergoing treatment for lobular breast Cancer which does not present in the traditional way.

Christine Murdoch talked about how women’s lives were put at risk because doctors didn’t recognise the different ways women presented with heart attacks:

Can you imagine having sudden onset severe debilitating pain. So bad that your husband urges you to go to A&E. When you are finally taken, you are told it is indigestion. Yet, to pardon the pun, in your gut, you know something else is going on. You are sent home.

The next day your husband insists you go to see the GP. She was aware that heart arrack symptoms can present differently in women than in men and insisted my friend return to the hospital for further tests which proved she had indeed had had a heart attack. That was over 25 years ago, so why are women still being misdiagnosed with indigestion instead of having full tests.

As we have heard, this is not a woman’s issue it’s a societal problem because each day lost to illness is a day lost to working to this the most inclusive country in the world.

Cllr Aude Boubaker-Calder talked of her 5 year battle to get a diagnosis for her condition. She described being dismissed, patronised and gaslit by her doctors who put her pain down to mental health, stress and she’d just have to put up with it.

Lin Macmillan introduced us to the idea of a period pain simulator, available for a modest price on the internet. She told of videos of men using these on You Tube and screaming with pain at even low settings while women would have it turned up to 7 and say that that is what they had to put up with every month. She called for every male medical student to have to use one and have refresher training every few years so they don’t forget.

Cllr Sally Pattle concluded “We will win this campaign to end medical misogyny because we are women and every day we change the world in myriad ways.”

The breadth of experience of the speakers, reflected by the reception from other women in the hall, shows that this motion was absolutely necessary.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social