Something isn’t working.
Their pain is dismissed. Their symptoms are minimised. Getting an appointment takes too long. Seeing the right specialist costs too much. They move between doctors looking for answers. And sometimes, after doing everything they were supposed to do, they still leave without one.
Now Australian data is putting numbers around those experiences.
And the cost of overlooking women’s health extends far beyond the consulting room.
It follows women into their workplaces, their relationships, their finances, their families and their futures.
Women are having a different experience of healthcare
Australia has universal healthcare.
That does not mean Australians experience healthcare equally.
In 2024–25, Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed that women were consistently more likely than men to delay or miss healthcare they needed.
Thirty per cent of females delayed or did not see a GP when they needed one, compared with 22.6% of males.
For specialist care, it was 20.5% of females compared with 15.6% of males.
For hospital care, 10.8% compared with 7%.
Women were also more likely to wait longer than they considered acceptable for a GP appointment: 29.4% compared with 22% of men.
These are not tiny differences buried in a spreadsheet.
They represent people living with symptoms for longer, delaying investigations, waiting for treatment or deciding that, for now, healthcare will simply have to wait.
Then there is the cost
Medicare is one of Australia’s most important institutions.
But a Medicare card does not eliminate the financial barriers surrounding healthcare.
The latest ABS data show women are more likely than men to delay several forms of healthcare because of cost.
Almost one in ten women delayed or did not see a GP because of cost in 2024–25, compared with 5.3% of men.
For specialists, the difference was even greater: 10.8% of women compared with 5.7% of men.
Women were also more likely to delay or go without prescription medication because they could not afford it: 9.4% compared with 5.1% of men.
And healthcare rarely involves only the price printed on an invoice.
There is time away from work.
Childcare.
Transport.
Parking.
Repeat appointments.
Another GP.
Another specialist.
Another scan.
Another day rearranged around an appointment.
For someone already balancing paid work, children, ageing parents and household responsibilities, healthcare can become another job.
Except this one begins because you are already unwell.
The battle to be believed
Access is only part of the Australian story.
There is another question:
What happens once women actually get through the door?
Australia’s #EndGenderBias survey provides an uncomfortable answer.
More than 2,800 responses were received from women, healthcare professionals and stakeholder organisations.
Two-thirds of women responding reported experiencing gender bias or discrimination in healthcare.
More than 70% reported bias in the diagnosis and treatment of health conditions.
General practice was the most commonly reported setting, while chronic pain and sexual and reproductive healthcare were among the areas where bias was most frequently experienced.
Women described feeling dismissed and disbelieved.
Pain was particularly prominent.
And these experiences matter because disbelief isn’t merely unpleasant.
It can change what happens next.
It can mean another appointment.
Another referral.
Another month.
Sometimes another year without an explanation.
Being heard can affect whether someone receives appropriate care.
Women’s health doesn’t stay inside the doctor’s office
Women’s health is usually discussed as a healthcare issue.
It is also a workforce issue.
An economic issue.
A caregiving issue.
A relationship issue.
And an equality issue.
A woman does not leave pelvic pain at the office door.
She cannot schedule a hot flush around a presentation.
Endometriosis does not disappear during a shift.
Migraine doesn’t check the family calendar before arriving.
Sleep disruption doesn’t care that there is an 8am meeting.
And brain fog doesn’t politely wait until the working day is finished.
When healthcare is delayed, inaccessible or ineffective, women carry the consequences into every other part of their lives.
Menopause makes the economic connection impossible to ignore
Few areas illustrate this better than menopause and perimenopause.
Australia’s Senate inquiry into menopause and perimenopause examined their effects on health, employment and economic participation.
Women told the inquiry about reducing their working hours, struggling with fatigue, reconsidering responsibilities and experiencing financial consequences.
For some women, menopause can contribute to reduced working hours, earlier departure from the workforce, lower income and lower superannuation balances.
Yet Australia still does not have sufficiently robust evidence to calculate the true economic impact.
And perhaps that tells us something too.
Something affecting millions of Australian women has historically been studied so inadequately that we still cannot properly measure what it costs them, their families, employers or the economy.
That is a women’s health problem in itself.
The missing years of women’s health
Pregnancy and menopause are only two chapters.
Women’s health changes across an entire lifetime.
Menstruation.
Contraception.
Fertility.
Pregnancy.
Birth.
Postpartum recovery.
Pelvic health.
Endometriosis.
PCOS.
Sexual wellbeing.
Mental health.
Perimenopause.
Menopause.
Cardiovascular health.
Bone health.
Healthy ageing.
Yet healthcare has often treated these as isolated events rather than parts of one connected biological life course.
You cannot build genuinely equitable healthcare if the evidence underneath it contains blind spots.
When a woman becomes unwell, the effects ripple outward
The cost is not measured only in hospital budgets or Medicare expenditure.
It can appear in the promotion someone doesn’t apply for.
The shift she cannot work.
The business she postpones starting.
The superannuation contribution she doesn’t make.
The exercise she stops enjoying.
The intimacy that becomes difficult.
The parent she cannot care for.
The school pickup she somehow still has to make.
The family plans that change.
The version of herself she no longer quite recognises.
None of these experiences belongs neatly inside a Medicare item number.
But they are part of the cost of poor health.
The opportunity in front of Australia
Imagine a different system.
One where a woman doesn’t need to become an expert in her own condition before somebody believes her.
Where persistent pain triggers curiosity rather than dismissal.
Where reproductive health, sexual health, mental health, hormones, cardiovascular health and healthy ageing aren’t treated as unrelated departments of the same body.
Where women understand what is happening to their bodies before something goes wrong.
Where clinicians have the evidence and training to recognise how conditions can present differently in women.
Where workplaces understand that supporting women’s health is part of retaining experienced people.
And where seeking healthcare doesn’t require choosing between your body, your pay cheque and your family.
That isn’t simply better healthcare.
It is economic infrastructure.
Women’s health is everyone’s business
For too long, women’s health has been placed in a small box labelled women’s issues.
The Australian evidence increasingly makes that box impossible to defend.
When women cannot access healthcare, families absorb the consequences.
When women reduce their participation in work because their health is poorly supported, employers lose experience and productivity.
When illness interrupts employment, women can lose income and superannuation.
When symptoms go undiagnosed, the health system often sees those women again.
And when half the population cannot participate as fully as they otherwise might, Australia loses something too.
The question is no longer whether Australia can afford to invest properly in women’s health.
It is whether we have ever properly calculated what it costs when we don’t.
Because women’s health isn’t separate from women’s lives.
And women’s lives aren’t separate from Australia’s future.
Hope Morrison
Author • Educator • Speaker