By Emily Kaine and Angus Thomson
When Mel Calandruccio was in high school, girls were told severe period pain was just a part of growing up.
“There was this expectation that you would just suffer in silence,” said Calandruccio, now a senior school teacher at Queenwood in Mosman. “My mum said she used to faint from her period pain in class and teachers wouldn’t bat an eye, I think just because women are expected to grin and bear it and deal with so much pain without complaining.”
Queenwood year 9 students Evie Davis, Sonia Punter and Chloe Abbott are among 100,000 students who have benefited from pelvic pain and endometriosis instruction.Credit: Max Mason-Hubers
But after a one-hour “PPEP talk” (covering periods, pain and endometriosis) with pelvic health physiotherapist Polly Levinson, Calandruccio’s year 9 students are better able to recognise when something isn’t right and they need to seek help.
“I found it really helpful learning … what pain is OK to have and what pain’s not OK to have, and when you should talk to a doctor,” said student Evie Davis. “If you feel like something’s not right, you may as well ask.”
Independent and Catholic schools receive federal funding for these sessions, but NSW is the only state in Australia that doesn’t fund the program in public schools.
Upper house MP Emma Hurst will on Wednesday move a motion in state parliament calling on the Minns government to fund 125 PPEP talk sessions across 90 public schools. It would cost a “modest” $200,000 a year, Hurst said.
Hurst, who has both stage 3 endometriosis and adenomyosis, recalls being in so much pain as a teenager that she would pull the buttons off her school uniform, only to go to the school’s sick bay and be met with eye rolls when she said she had period pain.
“There’s just a total lack of information about what endometriosis is,” Hurst said.
Treasurer Daniel Mookhey was receptive to the idea of funding the program during a formal meeting, Hurst said.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education said the mandatory personal development, health and physical education (PDHPE) syllabus “equips teachers to cover health issues such as endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome in an age-appropriate way”.
Pelvic health physiotherapist Polly Levinson delivers a PPEP (periods, pain and endometriosis program) talk at Queenwood School for Girls in Mosman on Thursday. Credit: James Brickwood.
Schools can use external providers, including the Pelvic Pain Foundation, to complement the curriculum, the spokesperson said.
Associate Professor Susan Evans, a gynaecologist and the foundation’s chair, said teachers can cover anatomy and where the blood comes from, but were unable and, in some cases unwilling, to discuss endometriosis and pain.
“Engaging with each individual school is unworkable, it’s not cost effective and it disadvantages schools that can’t afford to have us come,” she said.
In a peer-reviewed survey of more than 13,000 students published this month, one in five students assigned female at birth reported regularly missing school and one in 10 reported visiting an emergency department due to severe period pain.
“Some of these students, if you don’t manage it early, are going to have more pain problems later on,” Evans said. “That means low productivity, it impacts employers, they’re potentially going to need more intensive services later on ... so the financial impact is very high.”
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