Opinion

My daughter was failed by Wales’ healthcare system – and she is not alone

08 Sep 2026 9 minute read

Carys Wynne

I am speaking anonymously as Carys Wynne and sharing this because my daughter’s story is not just hers. It reflects the experiences of many women and girls across Wales who have struggled to get the healthcare they need.

Her journey began, like so many others, in a GP surgery, where her period pain was dismissed, her symptoms minimised and her concerns brushed aside.

From the very beginning, my daughter tried to explain the severity of her pain – pain that left her unable to stand upright, radiated through her pelvis, back and legs and made everyday life impossible.

But instead of being investigated, she was repeatedly told it was “just period pain”, “just hormones”, “just stress” or “just being a young woman”.

She was told to try different contraceptive pills, take painkillers, rest and “give it time”. Every appointment felt like a battle she could never win.

This is how her experience of endometriosis began: with dismissal.

Endometriosis is one of the most misunderstood and under-treated diseases affecting women today.

It is not simply “bad periods”. It is not normal pain that women should be expected to endure. It is a chronic condition which can cause severe pain and have a devastating impact on someone’s physical and mental wellbeing.

For some women, symptoms can affect their bowel and bladder as well as causing debilitating pelvic pain, fatigue and other problems.

Without appropriate treatment and specialist care, women can be left in daily pain and find themselves unable to work, study or live the lives they once had.

As my daughter’s symptoms worsened, she begged for help and I could see the devastating impact it was having on her.

There were times when the pain was so severe that she could not sleep, eat or walk properly.

She described nausea, bloating, stabbing pelvic pain, bowel symptoms, bladder pain, nerve pain and fatigue that left her unable to function. She felt as though her body was shutting down.

Yet every time she sought help, she felt she was being given the same response: try another contraceptive pill.

When that didn’t work, she was put on hormonal suppression treatment.

In her case, we felt there was inadequate specialist oversight of what was happening to her or of the physical and psychological consequences of the treatment.

We wanted somebody to look at the whole picture rather than simply dealing with individual symptoms as they appeared.

Eventually, like many others who feel they have exhausted the options available to them, she went private.

The waiting times were too long and the pain had become too severe for her to continue as she was.

By the time she finally reached a private specialist, months had passed and endometriosis had taken away so much of her quality of life.

She was exhausted, frightened and worn down after years of feeling that her symptoms had been dismissed.

Getting a diagnosis should have brought relief. In one sense it did, because it confirmed that the pain was real.

But it also brought anger.

Why had she had to spend so long trying to convince people that something was wrong? Why had so much of her young life already been affected before she got the answers she needed?

Diagnosis

Unfortunately, obtaining a diagnosis did not mean the battle was over.

Our experience of trying to navigate different parts of the healthcare system has often been frustrating and exhausting.

Complaints and attempts to challenge decisions can involve correspondence, evidence and repeated explanations of what has already happened.

When you are dealing with somebody who is in severe pain, every additional administrative hurdle matters.

Trying to access specialist treatment, including services across the border in England, has involved referrals, funding questions and uncertainty over what care is available and where.

For families such as mine, that can mean hours of additional work every week – chasing referrals, requesting letters, organising scans, appealing decisions, managing complaints and trying to coordinate care.

I do this because my daughter is sometimes simply too unwell to navigate it herself.

She is dealing with the disease. She should not also have to become an expert in healthcare administration simply to find out what treatment might be available to her.

And I often find myself wondering: what happens to women who have nobody?

What happens if there is no parent to advocate for them, no partner to support them or no income because they have become too ill to work?

Who makes the telephone calls, writes the emails, follows up the referral or challenges a decision when the patient herself barely has the energy to get through the day?

That is one of the things that frightens me most.

Losing trust

My daughter’s experiences have profoundly affected her trust in healthcare.

Appointments can trigger anxiety. Hospitals can cause fear. Even the thought of seeking help can become something to dread when previous experiences have left you feeling that you were not believed or listened to.

She has been told that she was too young for certain conditions and advised to give things time or simply push through.

I have watched her cry after appointments where she felt like an inconvenience rather than a patient.

I have watched her lose years of her life to pain, exhaustion and fear.

As her mother, it is incredibly difficult to watch.

You want to believe that when your child is seriously unwell there will be somebody who knows what to do and a clear route to getting the right help.

Instead, there have been times when it has felt as though we have had to fight at every stage.

I don’t believe my daughter is the only woman who has been left feeling like this.

There are women who have spent years trying to obtain answers for debilitating symptoms. There are girls missing school because of severe menstrual pain and women struggling to remain in work while dealing with chronic symptoms.

Their individual circumstances will be different, but they deserve to have their concerns taken seriously.

Promises of improvement

There has been increasing political recognition of the problems surrounding women’s healthcare in Wales, and commitments have been made to improve services. Women’s health has become a much more prominent part of the political conversation. That is welcome.

But from where my daughter and I are standing, progress does not feel nearly fast enough.

Women suffering today cannot live on promises that services may improve several years from now. They need appropriate treatment now. We need better access to specialist endometriosis care, including for women living in north Wales.

We need consistent standards of treatment and clear pathways for women whose condition requires specialist intervention.

We need properly supported multidisciplinary care where it is clinically required, and clinicians with the knowledge and training to recognise conditions which have too often been dismissed or poorly understood.

We also need women to know what should happen after surgery and where they can turn when symptoms persist or return.

Above all, women need to feel that somebody is listening.

The years cannot be returned

My daughter’s story is personal, but the issues it raises extend far beyond one family.

Endometriosis can affect education, careers, relationships, fertility, finances and mental wellbeing.

For a young woman at the beginning of her adult life, those consequences can be enormous.

Time matters

Every year spent waiting for answers is another year in which somebody may be struggling to study, work, socialise or make plans for the future.

My daughter cannot recover the time she has already lost.

That is something I find very difficult to accept.

I am speaking anonymously because my daughter and I are worried about the consequences of speaking publicly about her healthcare.

Patients should not feel frightened that raising concerns or challenging decisions could affect the treatment they subsequently receive.

Nor should somebody have to become an activist simply because they became ill.

Women and girls deserve dignity, appropriate specialist care and a healthcare system that listens to them and treats their concerns seriously.

Calling for change

A number of petitions have been launched calling for changes to endometriosis and women’s healthcare in Wales.

They include calls for greater compliance with NICE guidance and monitoring of endometriosis care, protection of specialist endometriosis services, increased support for gynaecological and reproductive healthcare, and standardised information and follow-up after endometriosis surgery.

For families such as ours, these are not abstract arguments about healthcare structures or policy.

They are about what happens to the next young woman who walks into a doctor’s surgery in debilitating pain.

Will she be listened to? Will her symptoms be investigated? Will she know where to go if the first treatment doesn’t work? Will specialist help be available if she needs it?

Or will she spend years trying to convince people that something is wrong?

I don’t want another mother to have to watch her daughter go through what mine has experienced.

I don’t want another young woman to lose years of her life before she feels heard.

We cannot undo what has happened to my daughter.

But Wales can do better for the women and girls who come after her.

They should not have to fight simply to be heard.

They deserve better.

Here are key petitions

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