UK women fare worse than Chinese women when it comes to healthcare, with Britain falling from 12th to 30th in the index
Representative image. AFP
New Delhi: The UK offers worse healthcare for women than China and Saudi Arabia, a global tracker revealed on Tuesday.
Among the 122 countries assessed in the 2021 Hologic Global Women’s Health Index, the UK secured 30th place, slipping from 12th last year.
The UK was ranked lower than several countries with questionable records on women’s rights due to inadequate efforts to prevent, diagnose and treat health problems.
Britain performed worse than most comparable Western countries, including the US, Australia, New Zealand, France and Germany, according to the study, which analyzed a range of data.
For the provision of women’s health care, it received an assessment that places it among Kazakhstan, Slovenia, Kosovo and Poland, which is three points lower than when a comparable exercise was carried out last year.
The results show a drop in Britain’s position, which was previously rated higher than countries including China, Saudi Arabia, the US, France and New Zealand. However, direct comparisons are impossible because
many of the countries assessed this year were not included last year.
The Hologic Women’s Health Index is based on a survey of more than 127,000 people conducted by the analytics company Gallup among people worldwide.
Poor access to screening, lengthy diagnosis, waiting times and a lack of mental health support are some of the causes contributing to Britain’s poor performance, according to analysts.
The UK government has been accused of “consistently prioritizing women’s health” after it was revealed last month that waiting times for gynecological services in England had trebled in a decade.
Women now have to wait almost four months on average for their first hospital visit to a gynecologist. Nevertheless, there are almost 38,000 English women on the waiting list, who have been on it for more than a year.
The UK’s score for women’s emotional wellbeing fell eight points to 68 out of 100 in a year, highlighting problems with the country’s mental health support system.
The UK scored just 23 out of 100 for preventive care, which includes screening for cancer and diabetes. Adults from racial and ethnic minorities were found to be particularly at risk of being released in a separate Hologic survey of 10,000 people in the UK.
In the UK, one in five women reported daily pain. However, research in the UK alone found that more than a quarter of respondents were unable to receive a diagnosis at all, with 15% only receiving it after eight or
more visits to healthcare providers.
Women in the UK who experienced pain had to see a doctor an average of 4.3 times before the cause was identified.
Another study found that women are at least 80% more likely than men to have adverse reactions to prescription drugs.
Over a six-year period, one in four people experienced at least one of these side effects, with women and those taking at least five pills at least 80% more likely to experience such harm.
The study, published in the British Journal of General Practice, followed 592 patients aged 70 and over from 15 general practices in the Republic of Ireland for six years.
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