More than six decades after being diagnosed with endometriosis, former governor-general Adrienne Clarkson considers herself “one of the very lucky ones.”
At 21, after learning she had the painful inflammatory disease, Ms. Clarkson soon had surgery at Toronto General Hospital. She credits her gynecologist at the time, Douglas Cannell, for preserving part of an ovary.
At the time, a nurse told her any other surgeon would have done a hysterectomy because her situation was “a mess.” Dr. Cannell spent two hours in the operating room with her.
Ms. Clarkson is grateful to have had access to his expertise so she was later able to bear children – something that isn’t always possible because endometriosis is associated with infertility in about 30 to 60 per cent of cases. Many patients require fertility treatments to conceive.
Endometriosis is an inflammatory condition that sees cells similar to those on the inside of the uterus grow outside of it. It is commonly associated with severe pelvic pain, which adversely affects patients’ well-being, productivity and relationships.
It also carries a high cost burden for the health care system. A population study published in 2020 looked at hospital admissions in Canada over a five-year period for every province except Quebec. It recorded that there were 47,000 admissions, totalling $152.2-million in health care costs, which amounts to $30-million a year.
Earlier this year, Elize Nocente, a Grade 11 student who lives in Vancouver, started a House of Commons petition, sponsored by B.C. NDP MP Jenny Kwan, to raise awareness of endometriosis in schools. She does not have the condition herself but knows others who do, and she aspires to be an obstetrician/gynecologist one day.
The petition calls for the federal government to establish a national advisory board on endometriosis education and to work with provincial and territorial governments to support the mandatory inclusion of endometriosis education in curricula.
