Jackie Handley, a 43-year-old resident of the Victoria area, has invested more than $200,000 in her health over two decades of living with a chronic condition. She has been to over 70 different doctors, acupuncturists, chiropractors, therapists, you name it. Even so, she remained something of an outlier on her 17-year journey to diagnosis with fibromyalgia. Handley is representative of a growing demographic of women fed up with the patriarchal medical establishment. They are fed up with the system’s dismissal of issues related to pain for women.
So when in early 2024 the Victorian Labor government announced Australia’s first ever inquiry into women’s pain, it was greeted with joyous applause. The one of a kind inquiry drew an extraordinary response, bringing in more than 13,000 submissions. Initially, the report was due by the end of 2024, but it has since been pushed back to mid-2025. This delay is especially irritating to women who believe their pain has been ignored for decades.
Chronic Pain and Isolation
Jackie Handley’s story is a representation of the struggles all too many women with chronic pain endure. She illustrates the emotional consequences of being alienated or not comprehended in her day-to-day existence.
“It’s quite hard to function each day knowing that people don’t fully understand what you’re going through,” Handley said.
Handley has visited hundreds of GPs, specialists and psychologists on her journey, but has often been made to feel judged or unheard. The years-long journey to get a diagnosis has left her angry. To her, it seems that she’s being handed off between different specialists, markedly missing the critical immediate attention that she requires.
“I’ve seen countless GPs, specialists, psychologists, and natural therapists — often feeling judged, ignored, or passed from one professional to the next,” she lamented.
Marina Kyriakou, founder of the Fight Endo Foundation, agrees with Handley’s frustrations. After waiting more than 20 years for a diagnosis of endometriosis, Kyriakou understands the toll that inadequate healthcare can take on women. Her campaign for improved and faster diagnostics has led her to campaign for a free screening bus that she says would provide women with quicker ultrasounds.
“I couldn’t be a mum because of endometriosis. To this day, I’m in my 50s now, it still upsets me,” Kyriakou shared, highlighting the profound personal impact of her health struggles.
Systemic Failures and Medical Education
Dr. Jill Tomlinson, a women’s health medical expert, emphasizes the fight chronic pain patients fight every day to prove something that is often invisible. These difficulties are not just limited to diseases like endometriosis. She views rural women as a programmatic crisis because she believes that systemic failures in healthcare have abandoned rural women during this extremely vulnerable period.
“There’s actually implications for women’s healthcare in cardiovascular health, in renal health,” Tomlinson noted.
Tomlinson knows that medical education and research urgently need to change. She underscores the fact that primary care physicians typically don’t receive the appropriate training to adequately address women’s pain concerns. The failure to treat women more holistically speaks to a larger chasm in the understanding of health outside of reproductive health.
“I do think there’s a lack of education amongst our GPs; that’s something we really need to target,” Kyriakou said.
This lack of knowledge leads to hours of delayed care for women suffering from severe pain. Instead, they usually wait more than six months for an appointment with a specialist.
Delays and Continued Disappointment
The extended timeline having produced such an incomplete unheeded inquiry report has left so many suffering communities feeling frustrated and unheard. Clearly, both Handley and Kyriakou express their worries with respect to the impacts of this delay on women’s health.
That’s why females are frustrated and angry. The takeaway I’m hearing as the dust settles is the let down, Kyriakou remarked.
As the chief government spokesperson on this effort, Arizona’s Rep. Regina Cobb repeatedly stated they heard the pain of women all over the state.
“We need to get on with the urgent work of addressing the problems that have been identified in the women’s pain inquiry,” she stated.
As the mid-2025 release date looms closer, women like Handley and Kyriakou continue to advocate for recognition and better treatment options for their conditions. We cling to optimism against all odds. They are hopeful the inquiry will lead to significant changes in how the healthcare system perceives and addresses women’s pain.
“It’s clear that women are hurting, but they are not being heard and we want to change that,” the spokesperson said.
As the mid-2025 release date looms closer, women like Handley and Kyriakou continue to advocate for recognition and better treatment options for their conditions. They remain hopeful that the inquiry will lead to meaningful changes in how women’s pain is understood and treated within the healthcare system.
