Women With Endometriosis Are Suing the State - We Need a National Inquiry
New reporting from the Irish Independent highlights that women with endometriosis are taking legal action against the State, seeking six-figure sums over alleged delays in diagnosis.
This should concern every person who has been campaigning for better endometriosis care in Ireland.
For years, patients have described delayed diagnosis, repeated presentations to healthcare services, symptoms being dismissed or normalised, multiple surgeries, fragmented care and the enormous physical, emotional and financial consequences of trying to access appropriate treatment.
Now some of those experiences are reaching the courts.
But patients should not have to individually sue the State before we collectively examine how and why women were failed.
This is exactly why we are calling for a National Inquiry
Our petition has never been solely about waiting lists or creating another healthcare pathway.
We are asking for an independent examination of what happened to endometriosis patients in Ireland over decades.
We need to understand:
- how patients experiencing significant symptoms remained undiagnosed or inadequately treated for years;
whether opportunities for earlier diagnosis and intervention were missed; - the consequences of repeated or inappropriate surgeries and fragmented treatment;
- why so many patients felt their pain and symptoms were dismissed;
- the financial consequences for patients forced to seek private or overseas healthcare;
- the impact on fertility, employment, education, relationships, parenting and quality of life;
- whether existing complaints, governance and accountability mechanisms adequately protected patients;
- and what must change so another generation does not experience the same failures.
- Ireland now has an Endometriosis Framework and an overseas treatment pathway. These developments matter, but improving future services does not remove the need to examine the past.
Reform and accountability are not the same thing. We need both.
When patients are pursuing substantial legal claims arising from alleged delays in diagnosis, we have to ask whether these are isolated experiences or evidence of wider systemic problems.
That question cannot be answered through individual court cases alone.
A National Inquiry could establish the broader picture, hear directly from affected patients, examine clinical and institutional practices and make recommendations capable of preventing the same failures from being repeated.
For many patients, this is not simply a debate about healthcare policy.
It represents years of pain.
Years without answers.
Lost fertility and opportunities.
Lost income.
Medical and travel expenses.
Repeated procedures.
And years of trying to convince a healthcare system that something was wrong.
The growing legal consequences should be another reason for Government to act.
We are asking the State to investigate the system before more patients are forced to seek accountability through the courts.
Read the Irish Independent report:
Sign and share our petition calling for a National Inquiry into endometriosis care in Ireland:
Every signature helps demonstrate that patients are not asking for the past to be forgotten simply because new services are beginning to emerge.
We deserve better care going forward.
We also deserve answers about what happened to us.