The housing crisis behind the healthcare crisis

Petition update: The housing crisis behind the healthcare crisis

When we talk about women struggling to access healthcare, we often focus on appointments, waiting lists and treatment. What many people don’t see is everything happening behind the scenes.

For me, that included seven years waiting for a home. During that time, I was also trying to manage stage 4 endometriosis, work, and keep rebuilding my life. Housing uncertainty added another layer of stress to an already difficult healthcare journey.

When you don’t have a secure home, it affects your ability to rest, recover from surgery, manage symptoms and plan for the future. When healthcare is delayed too, those pressures build on each other. The harm cannot be understood by looking at a medical waiting list alone.

That is one reason I am calling for a national inquiry. We need to hear what women have experienced across the whole of their lives, including the effects on housing, work, finances, relationships and mental health. We need to understand the layers of harm that develop when people cannot access the healthcare they need.

I’ve written more about my housing journey, the people who supported me and the painful silence from others in my latest article:

https://doireannbarrett.substack.com/p/two-years-since-i-secured-a-home?r=2lilgm&utm_medium=ios

Please read and share it, and continue to support the call for an inquiry. Women’s experiences deserve to be heard in full.