Helping women ‘take ownership of their own healthcare’

Dr Vicki Mattiazzo knows all too well the benefit of cancer screening, and the lifesaving impacts it can have on a woman’s life.
 
‘Breast screening really does reduce deaths from breast cancer, and I am happy to say I was a beneficiary of that myself last year with early detection,’ the RACGP Rural Council Deputy Chair told newsGP.
 
‘I was able to be diagnosed very early and it just really reinforced to me that these things can happen to anybody.
 
‘We know that screening works – breast screening, cervical screening, and just general health checks – we know how successful they are in preventing disease.’
 
This week is Women’s Health Week, and the theme for 2024 is ‘Your voice. Your choice’, aimed at ‘shining a spotlight on some of the biggest issues in women’s health’.
 
The week will focus on several female-specific health topics, including patients knowing what is normal for them, tackling taboos, how conditions affect women differently, and making healthy eating easier.
 
But for women living in Australia’s rural and remote areas, access to a GP to discuss these topics can be much harder than for their city counterparts.
 
Females and those aged over 65 remain the highest users of GP services, but patients living in or close to major cities access their GP almost twice as much as those living in Australia’s most remote corners.
 
For those women, having a choice can often feel out of reach.
 
‘Choice of doctors is more limited in rural areas than in a city area where there are more sub-specialist GPs, so you can go to a clinic that is specifically for skin or women’s health,’ Dr Mattiazzo said.
 
‘GPs should be trained in the fundamental basics of providing screening programs.
 
‘We are looking to continue to push for adequate staffing and adequate resourcing of GPs in rural areas and to allow GPs to do further training and upskilling in the areas their communities need.’
 
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, overall, men and women are seeking help from GPs for very different reasons.
 
‘Rates of coronary heart disease are higher among men, women are more likely to die from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and women use health services more frequently,’ it says.
 
‘Women are more likely than men to use homelessness services and to be a victim of domestic violence. Men are more likely to be in prison and to experience physical violence than women.’
 
But it is not just female patients at the centre this Women’s Health Week, for many female GPs, they are seeing the gender differences in practice too.
 
Female GPs continue to see more psychological presentations, with 80% of female GPs reporting this to be one of their top three reasons for patient presentations, compared to 60% of male GPs.
 
They also see significantly more women’s health, pregnancy, and family planning presentations, many of which are long and complex.
 
‘We need to make sure that the resourcing for female GPs is not disproportionate to our male counterparts because if we are doing more long consultations than they are, that’s going to discriminate against particularly female GPs,’ Dr Mattiazzo said.
 
‘It’s really important for everybody, including female GPs, to make sure they are getting their screening done as well, and that GPs have their own GPs.’
 
Tuesday’s Women’s Health Week topic will be ‘challenging conversations’, offering patients tools to help talk to their doctor about menopause, hormones, heavy periods, and polycystic ovary syndrome.
 
Dr Mattiazzo said its crucial that female patients feel empowered and confident to have these conversations with their GP, and to advocate for their healthcare.
 
‘It’s really important for people to take ownership of their own healthcare and we can encourage people to develop a language that makes that more effective in a consult,’ she said.
 
‘As a profession, we shouldn’t be intimidated by that, we should be providing patient-centered care, and we might not have all the answers immediately, but we can rebook, and review, and help to guide women and all patients in the direction that is right for them.’
 
Women’s Health Week will continue until 6 September.
 
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