Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

It is getting very late and I am sure the people from the Health Service Executive, HSE, must be very tired after almost four hours. I have two brief questions and one substantive one; I will try to rush them. The first one is on scoliosis, about which there was a good deal of publicity recently but which appears to have fallen off the agenda. I know many families personally affected by this issue and I want the witnesses to clarify the four-month target in terms of a waiting list. Where is that? How are the plans going to recruit three additional surgeons - two in Crumlin and one in Temple Street hospitals - because from what I am hearing, the waiting lists are still extremely long?

The second question is on the issue of the legislation post the referendum, if it is passed, and this other issue that has arisen. I agree that the Minister and the Department of Health should answer misinformation if it is in the public domain. I have said that previously. That does not involve spending money. It involves the Department of Health answering basic questions. We need basic biology lessons for a number of people about the abilities of foetuses and otherwise to speak and what they can do, what is proposed in the legislation and what 92% of abortions would actually look like at six months gestation, which is not what is being displayed on poles. Approximately 0.1% of abortions that took place in Britain last year are being presented as the common, everyday abortion. I urge the Department to intervene because these notions that are going around are very dangerous.

Lastly, on the broader issue of cervical cancer and also Portiuncula Hospital, one would not have to be too bright to notice that there is a pattern in this State of women and women's health not being taken very seriously. We have the hepatitis C issue, the Savita Halappanavar case and many other examples. I wonder if the HSE or the Government intend to look into the reason that is the case. I have my own ideas about the history of misogyny in this country but, internationally, is the HSE aware of gender bias in the delivery of health care? There have been many studies done on that, for example, a study called The Gender Pain Gap by Crook and Tunks. They studied accident and emergency departments when women and men attended reporting roughly similar levels of pain and found that men were treated within 49 minutes and women were treated within 65 minutes. It is not just men, although I cannot fail to notice the male line-up among the HSE witnesses. There are two women but they have not spoken yet. There are more women now who are general practitioners, GPs, and who are studying medicine. That does not mean they do not also have a gender bias. Another study on gender stereotyping in nursing care was done which showed nurses different symptoms and before they knew who they were attributed to, the nurses responded differently if they were male or female.

There is an inherent assumption, which runs through literature and culture, that women are hysterical, emotional and not rational and therefore are not as likely to be believed. For example, one in ten women suffers from endometriosis but, in general, it takes seven or eight years for it to be diagnosed. The symptoms are severe, chronic pain. Why is that? All of this has to be considered by the HSE. In the case I highlighted earlier, the woman was telling her GP about symptoms and was being fobbed off because of the two clear smear tests. This culture of not listening to women and not believing them is extremely unhealthy and should be examined.

In Portiuncula Hospital, the fact is that a couple had two children who died. I was not there and I have not looked at the medical records but in the second case, when that woman showed up, she was not believed in terms of the critical nature of her previous pregnancy. She was not taken as seriously as she should have been.

We are talking about plaques on walls. There is a saying in the Bible, "Onto the woman I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception". That seems to be carried over as gospel into the health service as well.