Mary Finch, Waltham Forest Socialist Party
The damning government report on medical misogyny has once again highlighted the terrible state of women’s healthcare. Pain is regularly downplayed or ignored, forcing many women to fight for years for the care that they need. Exhaustion from battling medical professionals and growing waiting lists is forcing many to turn to the private sector for basic healthcare. Some common gynaecological conditions, like endometriosis, are barely understood by many medical professionals because of a lack of research and training.
This is nothing new. For years, there has been growing anger about the ‘gender health gap’ as women have become emboldened to share their experiences. But what will Labour do to fix it? They’ve made it clear that the cuts to public services will continue. There’s little hope that they’ll invest sufficient NHS funding to cut waiting lists or develop much-needed research.
The report recommends additional training for NHS staff, but who will create this? Senior management are accountable only to themselves. They don’t intend for there to be serious input from women who have experienced medical misogyny, or the trade unionists fighting sexism. And how can incredibly overworked staff be expected to make time to properly engage with training?
After the recent NHS maternity scandals, the inquiries implied that the root cause was a poor ‘culture’. But culture doesn’t just drop from the sky! The treatment of women in healthcare is a reflection of the sexist society we currently live in.
The current debate on medical misogyny has echoes of the #MeToo movement. Despite huge progress on women’s rights, women routinely face harassment and sexual violence, but for years it felt like a normal part of life. The mass campaign has emboldened women to speak out. Sexist attitudes in healthcare have similarly gone unchallenged, until now.
The #MeToo movement also points the way forward: struggle. We need a political campaign, led by women and the trade unions, to fight sexism and for the NHS. A fully funded NHS could make huge strides in closing the gender health gap, but democratic control by workers and service users is also essential.
Workers and service users could shape the training that’s provided to staff, and crucially, women can hold services to account.
