Women and girls forced to wait years for endometriosis diagnoses ...

The SDLP MLA said: “It can take anything from 10 to 15 years to be diagnosed with endometriosis. I suffered my first symptoms of endometriosis when I was about 16, but I was 26 before I was diagnosed.

"That was back in a different decade — the 1990s — but, unfortunately, our diagnosis process has not moved on since that time; in fact, some of the gaps are getting larger.”

Ms. McLaughlin spoke of her own experiences 30 years ago but also mentioned the challenges of a constituent who sought her help in Derry recently.

“Last year, a woman who was waiting for surgery for endometriosis came into my office. Debilitating pain had forced her to leave a job that she loved in the health service.

"Years later, she was still languishing on a waiting list, weighing up whether to remortgage her family home to pay for private treatment. She is not alone. That is just one of the countless stories from women who face barrier after barrier in accessing healthcare,” she said.

The SDLP MLA said she conducted a survey of women's experiences recently that generated over 500 responses and which ‘painted a stark picture of a broken and inaccessible service’ for women generally.

"Hopefully, the Minister will know that 90 per cent of respondents felt that there was inadequate service provision for the biggest healthcare issues affecting women.

"They listed gynaecological health, mental health, maternal health, menopause support and many other issues, and I am deeply grateful to them for their personal stories.

"They were stories of pain that had been dismissed, of conditions that had been misdiagnosed and of a taboo that had set in when discussing menopause, sex education or periods.

"They were just some of the almost 10,000 women across the North who have been waiting more than a year for their first appointment with a gynae consultant,” she told MLAs.

Ms. McLaughlin said it was ‘long past time that the inequalities faced by women’ were addressed and urged the Executive to ‘follow the example of every other part of these islands and agree a comprehensive and fully funded women's health strategy’.

"While an action plan is under way — that is to be commended — there is no substitute for a strategy with meaningful timelines and funding attached that can address the inequalities that women face in their lives from puberty through to post-menopause,” she said.

Grassroots organisations like Derry Well Women, the Women's Centre and others have been ‘forced to plug the gap in statutory services, delivering programmes on the ground for women who are in desperate need’, she said.

"Women deserve ambition. That is why a women's health strategy must end the postcode lottery for services through regional bands. That means rolling out regional women's health hubs, where women from across the North can secure faster access to treatment. That includes abortion services. The Health Minister must fulfil his obligation in providing those services: abortion is healthcare,” she added.