Menopause? Women should claim “as a right” access to care

Aassociations related to women's health argue that they should claim "as a right" access to care during perimenopausal and menopause, because "it is no longer inevitable" to live without quality of life, particularly due to new medicines.

“It is necessary to strengthen women and people to be able to ask for care, realize that it is not inevitable to live like this, that they can have a better quality of life”, warns the president of the Portuguese Association for Family Planning (APF), Maria José Alves, in statements to Lusa.

The person responsible is concerned about the existence of “safer and more effective medicines” that have no participation, warning that “it is a right for people to enjoy the technical and scientific benefits that are taking place”.

“ Without these medicines, many women who could enjoy the benefits are prevented from doing so, because in economic terms they are far from being able to use them,” laments the gynecologist-obstetrician who presides over the APF.

Thus, “it is important to raise awareness of women in this area, to increase literacy for them to realize that they can live better,” he says.

“ If they start asking for this care and really explaining how they live this situation, it will also force it all to happen” warns the gynecologist-obstetrician who presides over the PFA, noting that sometimes “a small change in behavior can be extremely important and have a very big impact” on women at this stage of life.

On the other hand, although “immediately the menopause is associated with women, there are people who, identifying themselves with other genders, also go through this transition and also have to be cared for and well attended to in health services”, he says.

Maria José Alves also considers that the response of the National Health Service (SNS) must be “more consistent and protocoled”, in order to achieve the desirable “multidisciplinary approach” and “integral” based on primary health care.

“ Often, medicines are needed for people to have better well-being, treat some unpleasant symptoms or decrease certain risks. Menopause needs a multidisciplinary intervention, not only in relation to various specialties within medicine, but also in other health professionals”, he says.

For the president of the APF, it is essential that the answers are “in the SNS and very present in primary care”.

Also the president of Vidas – Associação Portuguesa de Menopausa, Cristina Mesquita de Oliveira, supports the idea of “giving people information tools that are safe and free from commercial interests”.

“It is not for people to self-medicate. It's so that with your doctors you can have a firm attitude. To say that they even read in the ‘site’ of a Directorate-General for Health [DGS], for example, that women who smoke or have smoked can do transdermal therapy, because it does not interfere with metabolic pathways”, he exemplifies, in statements to Lusa.

The association wants “to extend family planning to menopause consultations”, so that access to specialized care at this stage of life is “a universal right”.

For Cristina Mesquita de Oliveira, the SNS “does not have answers” for women in perimenopausal and menopause.

In addition, “menopause is a factor of inequality between men and women with regard to the maintenance of employment, as long as it is not assumed in labor legislation, as is assumed in pregnancy and menstruation”, he argues.

“Women with perimenopausal and menopause who feel affected in their capacity” should be protected by the State with legislation that “impels companies to penalize them” due to symptoms such as “mental confusion, difficulties in concentration, difficulties in memory, tiredness, exhaustion, sudden heats in the middle of a meeting”, for example.

According to the president of the Portuguese Menopause Association, “the reality of menopause is far from being a clinical reality”, he stresses.