An €8 Million Women’s Health Hub Opens in Kerry - But Still No Dedicated Endometriosis Service
Today, 26 August 2026, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill officially opened the new €8 million-plus Women’s Health Hub in Tralee, County Kerry.
Investment in women’s healthcare should be welcomed.
But for those of us campaigning for meaningful implementation of Ireland’s National Endometriosis Framework, today also highlighted exactly why this petition remains necessary.
The new Women’s Health Hub does not list a dedicated endometriosis service among the services it provides.
Kerry is also not one of the specialist centres identified within the National Endometriosis Framework, meaning patients with advanced disease can still be required to travel to supra-regional services for specialist care.
For patients with complex disease, this isn’t a minor inconvenience. It can mean travelling while chronically ill, navigating multiple hospitals and specialists, and trying to coordinate care between local and supra-regional services.
My own experience demonstrates the gaps that remain.
I was diagnosed with Stage 4 endometriosis in 2005 and have spent more than two decades navigating this disease. I have lost my uterus, cervix, both fallopian tubes, right ovary and appendix, as well as my fertility.
Despite being approved for the Endometriosis Surgery Abroad Interim Scheme (ESAIS), I am still experiencing gaps in the basic multidisciplinary care I should be able to access here in Kerry.
Months ago, I was referred for physiotherapy locally and attended a state-of-the-art healthcare facility within walking distance of this new Women’s Health Hub.
Yet an appropriately endometriosis-trained physiotherapist could not be provided for me.
Months later, I am still without one.
That is particularly relevant today because women’s health physiotherapy is specifically included among the services being promoted within this new hub.
The question therefore isn’t simply whether Kerry has women’s health physiotherapy.
It is whether a patient with complex endometriosis can access a physiotherapist with the specialist expertise required to treat her condition.
Buildings alone do not create specialist healthcare.
We need trained multidisciplinary teams inside them.
There is another reason today’s announcement feels like such a missed opportunity.
Tralee hosted Ireland’s first Endometriosis Awareness Month retreat in March 2024, bringing women affected by endometriosis together for support, education, connection and wellbeing.
Through Cneasú, that work has continued.
Tralee has also quite literally lit up yellow for Endometriosis Awareness Month.
We have raised awareness here.
We have brought patients together here.
We have created community here.
And now we have invested more than €8 million in a Women’s Health Hub here.
Yet there is still no dedicated endometriosis service listed within it.
There is even a personal poignancy for me in its location.
The new Women’s Health Hub sits directly opposite Austin Stack Park, named after my great-granduncle Austin Stack.
The Minister for Health was therefore in my hometown today, opening a major women’s healthcare facility directly across from a place carrying my family history, while my own case and correspondence regarding the gaps in complex endometriosis care are already known to her office.
I would have welcomed an opportunity to meet with the Minister while she was in Tralee.
More importantly, I believe representatives of the patient community should have been part of a day celebrating the future of women’s healthcare in Kerry.
This petition has never simply been about creating another policy document.
We already have a National Endometriosis Framework.
The question is what happens to women on the ground.
Are local clinicians being appropriately upskilled?
Are physiotherapists being specifically trained in endometriosis?
Can Stage 4 patients access multidisciplinary monitoring close to home?
What happens when a patient’s disease becomes too complex for the pathways currently available?
And why, when we are investing millions in new women’s healthcare infrastructure, aren’t we using those opportunities to address the geographical inequalities in endometriosis care?
These are precisely the questions that deserve independent scrutiny.
That is why I continue calling for a National Inquiry into endometriosis care in Ireland, alongside properly resourced specialist services, accountability for historic and ongoing failures, equitable access to multidisciplinary treatment and meaningful inclusion of patient voices in the decisions being made about our healthcare.
Today’s opening is progress.
But progress should not prevent us from identifying what is still missing.
We have the buildings.
We have the National Framework.
We have the patients telling the State what they need.
Now we need the specialist expertise, accountability and access to make those promises real.
I have written in more detail about today’s opening, my experience as a complex Stage 4 patient, and why I believe the exclusion of dedicated endometriosis care represents such a missed opportunity:
Read: An €8 Million Women’s Health Hub - But Where Is Endometriosis Care for Kerry Women?
Please continue to sign and share this petition.
Every signature strengthens the call for an endometriosis healthcare system in Ireland that works not only on paper, but for the patients who actually have to live within it.
Awareness is no longer enough. Implementation, expertise and accountability must come next.