Include more Women’s Health checks during the Cervical Screening appointment. #checkMEup

Include more Women’s Health checks during the Cervical Screening appointment. #checkMEup

Started
29 January 2019
Petition to
Rt Hon Steve Barclay (Secretary of State for Health and Social Care)
Signatures: 44,594Next Goal: 50,000
Support now

Why this petition matters

Started by Dafina Malovska

Hi, my name is Dafina and at 35 my life changed forever. I was diagnosed with stage 2 womb cancer which had already spread to my ovaries, despite being told by doctors to take Activia yoghurt for the "bloating". The only option to save my life was to have a total hysterectomy which meant the removal of my uterus and both ovaries. Womb cancer deprived me of having my own children. I was also put into immediate surgical menopause after the operation.
  
At the moment the only check available for a woman’s reproductive system is cervical screening (smear test). But a woman’s body is more than just a cervix. This test is very important but more needs to be done as it only tests for 1 out of the 5 gynaecological cancers. 
 
According to Cancer Research UK, 3,000 women are diagnosed every year with Cervical cancer. But 19,000 women are diagnosed with the other types of gynaecological cancer for which there aren’t any preventative checks:
-      Womb cancer (9,700 women diagnosed each year)
-      Ovarian cancer (7,500 women diagnosed each year) 
-      Vulval cancer (1,400 women diagnosed each year)
-      Vaginal cancer (250 women diagnosed each year) 

Because there are no checks for these, I wonder how many of these thousands of women were eventually diagnosed too late?

I had my regular cervical screening and the results showed nothing abnormal. Five months later I began to experience extreme bloating and went to my GP almost monthly. Because GP’s in the UK don’t include any female-specific checks during the consultation, the symptoms were assumed to be gluten-related bloating and I was advised to take yoghurt to help my digestion; my GP did not even touch my abdomen once. Soon after this I began bleeding between my periods and in November that year, while I was abroad, a simple pelvic examination immediately revealed that I was carrying a 14cm (5.5in) tumour weighing 500g (17oz) in my womb.

Currently, the UK’s approach to healthcare is reactive, not preventative. The system is symptom-driven, which relies upon us discovering an issue ourselves and then going to our GP.
As standard GP appointments are only 10 minutes long, there is very little time for a woman to discuss an issue properly and be understood, never mind for the GP to carry out any kind of check or examination. This results in a prolonged guessing game.

Every year in the UK, over 22,050 women are diagnosed with a form of gynaecological cancer. Sadly, over 7,600 women die from a gynaecological cancer every year, which is 21 women each day (Cancer Research UK). UK cancer survival rates lag significantly behind so many countries.
Women in the UK are suffering from lots of health conditions that significantly affect their quality of life.
 
We need to change this!
In many other countries throughout Europe and worldwide such as: France, Germany, Italy, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Malta, Macedonia the US, Brazil, Israel, Réunion, Japan, the Philippines and many more, girls and women have the option to access yearly women’s health check ups,  not only to test for cancer but to check for any abnormalities and maintain good gynaecological health.

If the NHS can’t accommodate a regular check up at the moment, we need to expand the current smear test to involve more check ups and more questions.
The Smear Test appointment is a missed opportunity for any serious issues to be highlighted at an early stage.

This is an essential part of pro-active health management. If every Cervical Screening test visit is maximally utilised and women are encouraged to speak up between visits, taboos will begin to be broken, women will be empowered to seek help.
Consider this: In the UK it’s not usual to visit a women’s health specialist for any kind of check-up, however we are told to visit a dentist every year!

Please support me in this petition to help save the lives of our: sisters, daughters, mothers, wives, girlfriends, friends and people with female reproductive organs.


 

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Signatures: 44,594Next Goal: 50,000
Support now
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Decision-Makers

  • Rt Hon Steve BarclaySecretary of State for Health and Social Care