Naga Munchetty was told to 'suck it up' as womb condition ignored for 32 years

18 October 2023 , 14:16

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Naga Munchetty struggled for decades to get help from doctors (Image: Parliamentlive.tv)

Naga Munchetty has said she was told to "suck it up" by doctors when she tried to get help for a debilitating womb condition that left her in intense pain.

The BBC Breakfast star told MPs how she struggled to get help from the age of 15 for adenomyosis, which left her in such agony that at one point her husband called an ambulance for her. After more than three decades, she was diagnosed last year with the condition when the womb lining grows within the muscle in its walls.

Ms Munchetty, 48, said she was made to feel like the agonising pain was normal by doctors who dismissed her concerns. Speaking to the Commons Women and Equalities Committee, she said she was consistently told to "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". She said there was a "constant, 'You're fine, everyone else is putting up with this, why can't you?"'

Naga Munchetty, left, and Vicky Pattison, right, told MPs women's complaints weren't being taken seriously (Parliamentlive.tv)

She sought private medical treatment after suffering unexplained heavy bleeding for nearly two weeks and her GP, who specialised in women's reproductive health, advised her to pay for care due to lengthy NHS waiting lists. Admitting she is "fortunate enough to be able to have private healthcare", she said it was the "only time I felt I could sit there and take time and force an issue, force understanding, force explanations from my gynaecologist and not feel bad that I was taking up more than 10 minutes of my GP's time because there was a queue of people in the waiting room".

Her concerns were echoed by reality TV star Vicky Pattison, who said she was left feeling "stupid and ashamed" when she tried to get help from doctors for her period disorder. The Geordie Shore star, 35, who has now been diagnosed with pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), said she faced extreme symptoms when she reached her late 20s, including "crippling anxiety", insomnia and fatigue, but they were put down to PMS (pre-menstrual syndrome).

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She told the committee: "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'." Ms Pattison said it made her feel "even more invalidated" and she was left thinking she should just "get on with it". In some of her darker moments, she said she felt "the world would be better without us (Vicky) in it".

Describing her experience with doctors, she said: "I can't tell you how many times I got told, 'They'll (symptoms) get worse as you get older, this is just natural'. And you believe it. You absolutely believe it and you believe that you're weak, that you can't cope with what every other woman is coping with." Ms Pattison also went private this year "after feeling ignored and invalidated by the NHS" and said she "could've kicked myself for taking so long" as she was immediately diagnosed with PMDD.

"I felt like for the first time somebody actually listened and took it seriously," she said. "I felt like I was wasting the NHS's time. That's how I got to. And when I eventually was paying to see somebody, I felt like I had more of a right to sit there and speak. And that's mental. Like, that's not right, you know, so no, I felt stupid and ashamed and like I was wasting everybody's time and I felt weak."

They both told MPs that medics need to listen to women when they say they are in pain. Ms Pattison said: "GPs, anyone within the NHS, any medical professionals at all, they just need to start to take women seriously when they say something's wrong. I know loads of brilliant women and I don't feel like we're the weaker sex at all. I feel like we're brilliant. I feel like we're strong and powerful and we put up with a lot more than blokes do most of the time.

"If we have got ourselves up and gone into a doctor's, a hospital, whatever, to say something's wrong, I feel like the least people can do is listen to her and believe that there is something wrong." She said there needs to be "better knowledge, better understanding" about health issues affecting women specifically.

Ms Munchetty added: "No woman says she's in pain unless she is in real pain. No woman says she is anxious unless she is really anxious. No woman wants to appear weak or appear incapable until she really is, until she can't cope anymore. And it shouldn't be that way."

Lizzy Buchan