Vicky, from reality show Geordie Shore, said she felt “stupid and ashamed” while BBC Breakfast host Naga recalled being told to “suck it up” since she was a teenager.
Both women had been trying to obtain a diagnosis and treatment for menstrual and gynaecological issues.
They told the Women and Equalities Committee’s inquiry into women’s reproductive health yesterday they each went private after failing to find the care they needed on the NHS.
Vicky, 35, who has premenstrual dysphoric disorder, said extreme symptoms in her late 20s such as “crippling anxiety”, insomnia and fatigue were put down to premenstrual syndrome by various doctors.
She said: “I was always told exactly the same thing, ‘This is PMS. This is what women go through. Every other woman in the world is dealing with this’.” This made her feel “even more invalidated” as she wondered if she just needed to “get on with it”.
The committee was told the symptoms “in some of the darker moments” saw her feel “the world would be better without us”.
She said of the doctors: “I can’t tell you how many times I got told, ‘symptoms get worse as you get older, this is just natural’. You believe that you’re weak, that you can’t cope with what every other woman is coping with.” She opted for private healthcare this year “after feeling ignored and invalidated by the NHS” – and was diagnosed with PMDD.
She said: “For the first time somebody actually listened and took it seriously. I felt like I was wasting the NHS’s time. When I eventually was paying to see somebody, I felt like I had more of a right to sit there and speak. That’s not right…I felt stupid and ashamed.”
Naga, 48, who has adenomyosis, said her husband called an ambulance due to her pain.
She said she was told since she was 15 “just to ‘suck it up’ and ‘you’re normal’ and ‘everyone goes through this’, and especially told by male doctors who’ve never experienced a period and then by female doctors who hadn’t experienced period pain”.
There was a “constant, ‘You’re fine, everyone else is putting up with this, why can’t you?”’ She had unexplained heavy bleeding and her GP advised her to go private if possible due to lengthy NHS waiting lists.
She said it was the “only time I felt I could sit there and take time and force an issue…and not feel bad that I was taking up more than 10 minutes of my GP’s time”.
Both Vicky and Naga said that NHS staff must listen properly if women express concerns about pain. Vicky added: “They just need to start to take women seriously when they say something’s wrong. The least people can do is listen.” She called for “better knowledge, better understanding” about female health issues.
The MPs are examining women’s challenges over gynaecological and reproductive conditions.
