Endometriosis: British women forced to crowdfund for essential healthcare

Long NHS waiting lists are forcing women in the UK to fundraise to get treated privately for potentially life-threatening gynaecological conditions. Data from the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe shows that the number of fundraisers mentioning endometriosis, hysterectomy, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) or fibroids has increased by 177 per cent in the past 5 years. A woman who felt forced to use GoFundMe to help pay for surgery she needed to treat her endometriosis tells Tortoise she is “basically now permanently disabled” because of “gynaecological neglect” by the NHS. According to GoFundMe, the number of active endometriosis fundraisers in the UK grew by an average of 30 per cent a year between 2018 and 2023. As of December 2023, there were nearly 600,000 people on NHS gynaecology waiting lists across England, more than 33,000 of those having been waiting over a year.