760,000 women in the UK waiting for a gynaecological appointment? That’s just the tip of the iceberg | Zoe Williams

A broken NHS makes life worse for everyone. What happened to the dream of promoting ‘good health in all citizens’?

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has landed on an arresting image to illustrate the waiting-list crisis in its field. If all 760,000 women waiting for NHS gynaecological appointments were to stand in a line, the queue would go from London to Exeter. It’s great for visualisation, but it also rams home what a criminal waste of human energy this represents – the awful pressing interminability. I couldn’t face the queue for Kew Gardens now, let alone if I were in constant pain.

Given this, plus a crisis in maternity care – nearly half of all services last year were marked as inadequate or in need of improvement – you could make a solid case that it is women who suffer most when the health service is underfunded. But I have to mention the guy in my local car-hire place. I rent a car only to go to one place (Ramsgate, thank you for asking) and I go only in alternate school holidays, so a bit less than once a quarter. Every time I have been this year, he has been back on the waiting list for an operation that got cancelled at the last minute. The system is not working for anyone.

760,000 women in the UK waiting for a gynaecological appointment? That’s just the tip of the iceberg | Zoe Williams

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