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Affecting one in ten women, endometriosis is far from being a rare disease. This is why the announcement of a national strategy to combat this female pathology has raised many hopes. Both on the side of the patients affected but also for the associations which fight for better care for these women.
“It’s not a women’s problem. It’s a social problem“, estimated the president about endometriosis, which affects more than two million French women and represents the first cause of infertility in France.
A national plan against endometriosis
To move forward on this subject which is “close to his heart”, he announced the launch of the “first national strategy for the fight against endometriosis”, largely inspired by the report submitted by the gynecologist and MEP LREM Chrysoula Zacharopoulou. This plan will be articulated around three main axes. First, it will be “better understand this disease and its causes, and find therapeutic treatments“, which will involve deploying resources for research “up to the challenge“.
Then each region will have to “precisely identify territorial care channels with at least one referral and expertise center“. Finally, “we must develop what we could call an + endometriosis reflex + with all audiences: at school, at university, at home, in the office, and even, and above all I would say, in medical circles“, believes Mr. Macron.
“France will be a model for Europe”
Ms. Zacharopoulou greeted AFP “recognition by the whole of society vis-à-vis the millions of women who suffer“.”France will be a model in Europe“, she rejoiced. “It’s good to hear that in the mouth of the Head of State“, also reacts Tiphaine, 31, suffering from endometriosis, after 10 years of suffering and wandering. At home, the pain appeared at the age of 20. So strong that she had to stop her studies in right. “I saw about twenty doctors: general practitioners, gynecologists, gastroenterologists“, she says. “I remember hearing +you again? we’ll give you a package!+“. But never the word “endometriosis”. Until she came across, at the age of 28, a surgeon who believed her, listened to her and finally made a diagnosis, opening the door to care.
Diagnostic delay
She is now waiting for “concrete actions”: “in a class, at least three young girls have endometriosis. If we did an automatic diagnosis, it would save a lot of time.“, she believes. Endometriosis, on which knowledge remains incomplete, is linked to the presence of cells of uterine origin outside the uterus, which react to hormones during menstrual cycles.
Sometimes asymptomatic, it can also be manifested by heavy periods and severe pain. Lack of knowledge leads to a diagnostic delay of seven years on average. “We’ve been warning about endometriosis for 20 years, it’s about time the problem was taken seriously“, emphasizes Yasmine Candau, president of the EndoFrance association. “A research program, a care sector in all regions, better continuing education for doctors, all of this is going in the right direction.“, she believes.
ALD recognition
“It’s the first time we’ve had a national strategy and that’s a very good thing.“, also salutes Nathalie Clary, president of the Endomind association, after a first plan drafted in 2019 but delayed by the Covid-19 health crisis. “We now need to have a budget envelope“on the table, she asks. She also regrets that endometriosis is not recognized among the thirty diseases classified as long-term conditions (ALD).
The disease should always come under the so-called ALD 31, “off the list”, which means that only the most severely affected women, with treatment for more than six months, benefit from complete care. MP LFI Clémentine Autain intends to present a resolution to the National Assembly on Thursday to recognize endometriosis as a long-term condition.
Interministerial steering
The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, for his part specified on Wednesday that he would meet on February 14 a first interministerial steering committee, which will in particular rely on the associations. “Let’s open our eyes to endometriosis. This disease, which affects one in ten women, prevents them. It prevents them in their daily life, in their work, in their practice of activities, in their intimate life, in their life projects. Starting tomorrow, with the national plan that I will lead, we will act to inform, train, to develop our knowledge and our treatments, so that these millions of women no longer suffer in silence, in the wandering of the diagnosis and can live with their disease. on a daily basis while being accompanied. I will be the guarantort.” he said in a press release on the matter.
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