Yet another women’s health issue derailed by a man out of his comfort zone | Amanda Blair

It took just four minutes and 24 seconds for me to want to give this man a vasectomy without the aid of anaesthetic, writes Amanda Blair.

Four minutes and 24 seconds was all it took to infuriate me.

I don’t usually listen to breakfast radio – too triggering, bringing back long-buried memories of my time behind the early morning microphone involving Gotcha Calls, Battle of the Sexes and my personal favourite – No Undie Mondays.

But on this particular morning I flicked to ABC’s 891 just before 9am. Senator Marielle Smith was discussing a subject that was of interest to me – menopause – with David Bevan, known as the giver of the Coco mugs and advice to parliamentarians about how to do their jobs.

ABC host David Bevan.

He was asking questions, but not questions that may assist Senator Smith explain her important Senate Inquiry into Menopause and Perimenopause and how it might benefit women and workplaces all over the land.

Nay, Mr Bevan was asking questions he prepared earlier – he wanted to know if men would have access to leave for a vasectomy?

At this point I wanted to give Mr Bevan a vasectomy without the aid of anaesthetic.

Yet another women’s health conversation being hijacked by a male who clearly felt out of his comfort zone so steered it back to something he understands – his own appendage.

Sigh. No wonder we get upset.

Menopause and perimenopause is an unavoidable women’s health issue that affects 50 per cent of the population, yet we don’t discuss it much.

Actually, it affects our family, spouses and friends too when some of us have adverse symptoms.

I started my own menopause “journey” at 47 and it continues to be the most confounding thing I’ve ever dealt with.

I had no idea why I felt so weird all of a sudden.

Why I’d cry at commercials for nappies, get enraged by people who walked too slowly over pedestrian crossings and wanted to stab things (including my husband).

Why I’d gone from a person with endless energy and capacity to somebody who lacked self-esteem, felt useless and wanted to sleep all day.

I was also forgetting words (kind-of important), kept losing my keys, lost my car a couple of times in multistorey carparks and was losing my temper with alarming regularity. I actually thought I was developing early onset dementia or had a brain tumour.

I went to the doctor who sent me for tests.

All clear, but yet the symptoms continued.

Went to another doctor, they sent me for more tests, all clear but yet the symptoms continued.

I went to four doctors over a period of 12 months and not one did some simple math – 47 + weird symptoms = menopause.

It was only after a friend showed me a “menopause checklist” online that I marched myself off to a gynaecologist, got on the HRT and within two weeks I was back to being “normal”.

Senator Marielle Smith during Question Time in the Senate at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

If Senator Smith had been allowed to talk and not be drawn on discussing vasectomies she may have been able to shed light on this lack of diagnostic capacity from most GPs.

The report discovered that most medical students have only one hour of training in this important subject – yep, one hour.

The inquiry received 285 submissions and held seven public hearings and many women said they’d been ignored, misdiagnosed and misprescribed by their doctors.

Recommendations 10, 11 and 12 of the report focus on better training for medical students and ongoing training and information for medical practitioners.

The report makes another 22 clear, clever and easy-to-achieve recommendations including that MHT is made affordable and accessible for all women, midlife healthcare checks are given an appropriate MBS number, research be conducted into the real impacts of M&P on the workforce, we have an awareness campaign so we all have greater understanding of this health issue and that we consider amending the Fair Work Act to offer more flexible workplace arrangements.

The report also recommends employers develop appropriate policies in consultation with employees that assist in keeping women gainfully and happily employed throughout “the change” (as my grandmother called it), simple things like desk fans and breathable uniforms.

Thank you Senators Smith and Larissa Waters for this valuable work, it’s nice to talk openly about this.

Sorry about the vasectomy thing but, you know, sometimes it’s all they can think about.

Full report available here

Originally published as Yet another women’s health issue derailed by a man out of his comfort zone | Amanda Blair