Ally Naylor, suffering from adenomyosis, was told to expect a 24-month wait to see a gynaecologist. Now, she faces further delays despite needing urgent surgery. Photo / Rafaella Melo
More than 900 women in Hawke’s Bay are waiting to see a gynaecology specialist, many of them facing “unbearable pain”.
Health NZ says it has six part-time senior medical officers working to help those on the region’s waitlist.
A contract with private providers to outsource gynaecological procedures in Hawke’s Bay is also being used to reduce waiting times.
In total, it has managed to discharge 542 people from the waitlist in 12 months, and more than 50 per month since March.
But those waiting say it’s not fast enough.
Napier woman Ally Naylor has been battling debilitating soreness from adenomyosis, a uterine disorder often likened to having endometriosis inside the muscle wall of the womb.
It causes heavy and prolonged menstrual bleeding and severe pain.
When she was referred for help in November 2023, she was told to expect 24 months, just to see a specialist.
She said since then, her condition had worsened month by month.
“It’s excruciatingly painful,” Naylor says.
“Every month, it feels like someone is yanking the inside of my uterus out of me for six days straight.”
After funding private consultations and ultrasounds, she is now marked as an urgent surgical case, with her doctor recommending a hysterectomy – surgical procedure to remove the uterus – within three months.
Due to a staff shortage, Naylor has been told it’s unlikely her surgery will happen this year.
“If I could pay it privately, that’ll be about $25,000 ... I don’t have $25,000. I can’t afford it,” she says.
Naylor says the pain leaves her bedridden for days.
“I can’t even walk my dog when I am on my period.
The toll isn’t just physical. Naylor says at one point in December her “mind broke”.
Unable to work, Naylor has since made a slow mental recovery with the help of family, therapy, and support from others, including about 50 women who joined a Facebook group she recently started called Hawke’s Bay Gynaecologist Crisis.
“This is 100% a crisis,” Naylor says.
“When you have women that are affected and not available to work or look after their children, there’s massive flow-on impacts to the local economy and to family structure,” Naylor said.
A Facebook group member, who asked not to be named, said she had been waiting nearly two years for a public gynaecology consultation.
“I was referred through to the public health gynaecology in September of 2023 as a semi-urgent priority, and I still haven’t received an appointment,” she told Hawke’s Bay Today.
Living with premenstrual dysphoric disorder, a severe form of premenstrual syndrome, had caused anxiety and depression, which led to her losing her job and marriage, she said.
“Literally for two weeks out of every month, which is essentially half my life, I’ve just been absolutely useless,” she said.
“I could have actually done really well with my life, but it’s really held me back in so many ways, and it’s just been so incredibly frustrating with our public health system and just not being able to get any help.”
Rika Hentschel, acting group director of operations for Health NZ, acknowledged the backlog, and the toll it was taking.
“Our health services continue to experience significant pressures due to sustained high levels of acute demand and workforce shortages, and this is having an impact on planned care.”
Hentschel said as of June 30, there were 912 women on Hawke’s Bay’s Gynaecology Specialist Outpatient Waitlist.
“Health NZ has a contract with private providers in Hawke’s Bay to outsource gynaecological procedures to try to improve waiting times for patients.
“We are actively trying to recruit an additional SMO to the gynaecology team.”
Dr Samantha Newman, a Napier-based GP who provides pipelle biopsies for women with abnormal bleeding, said the high number of women in the waitlist “is just the icing on the cake”.
She says many women aren’t even referred as their cases are considered low priority or are outright declined.
“The waitlist is what has got through all these barriers.
“Doctors aren’t even referring because they’re like, ‘well, you’re not going to get seen’.”
While not part of the hospital system, Newman said many women come to her in distress after being unable to access public gynaecology services, with some now waiting until February for appointments with her.
“It’s just implicit in my work, and it has been for years. It’s become normal,” Newman says.
“Many women come to me because they can’t see anyone else and they are unable to work, and there’s the mental health impact as well.”
Newman said she felt the current system isolated women’s health instead of treating it with a multidisciplinary approach. She noted that GPs, who are trained in hormone, mental and reproductive health, often lack the time and resources to step in effectively.
Newman also runs a women’s health charity, Rose Gold Trust, to help bridge the growing gap.
She believes addressing the waitlist requires more than adding appointments.
“There aren’t enough doctors, theatre spaces, money. But that doesn’t mean we need to lose the women and the whānau at the centre of it, which this system has done,” she says.