MAINTENANCE – It takes 7 years before endometriosis is diagnosed. To lift the taboo and reduce this wandering, an information campaign at school is launched.
Endometriosis enters school. From the start of the 2016 school year, students and school staff will be made aware of this gynecological disease which affects one in ten women. The association Endometriosis Info, which brings together five patient associations, is the driving force behind this initiative. Its support: the Ministry of National Education, Higher Education and Research.
Thanks to better information, the Dr Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, gynecologist at the Armand-Trousseau hospital (Paris), hopes to reduce the diagnostic wandering of patients. They have to wait on average 7 years before knowing their disease.
How did you come up with the idea for this partnership?
Dr Chrysoula Zacharopoulou : I developed this project many years ago. There are three targets for providing information on endometriosis: health professionals – by the Ministry of Health -, family planning and midwives – by the Ministry of Women’s Rights -, and young girls – by the Ministry of Education.
I presented my project to Najat Vallaud-Belkacem in 2014, when she was Minister of Women’s Rights. I told her that it was a question of dignity as much as of health: our society must learn to respect the pain of women and take it seriously. Due to the changes, I found myself facing Pascale Boistard (Secretary of State for Women’s Rights, editor’s note) and Marisol Touraine when I put the project forward. But I went back to see the counselors of Mrs. Belkacem, who was the first to get involved. She kept her word.
Have you set a precise framework for the training?
Dr Chrysoula Zacharopoulou : From September, we will send posters to all high schools and colleges. They will be in the school infirmaries, with flyers. At the same time, we will participate in various congresses and annual meetings of school nurses, to show how much to be careful: a teenager with painful periods, frequent absences from school, who misses sport… The objective is to detect which girls may later have endometriosis. When we see that at 15, their quality of life is not good, that is not normal.
Do you think you will be able to lift the taboos?
Dr Chrysoula Zacharopoulou : Above all, I expect respect. At the age when you create your personality as a woman, it is important to live well during the period, including when it is painful. Teenage girls need to feel taken seriously by their peers, school nurses and teachers. I also hope that they will be referred to a gynecologist who can perform the follow-up in the years to come.
We cannot change the current generation, but we can lay a healthy foundation for the next. We will not see results today. In the years to come, the outlook will be different. It is when people are informed that they can improve. If we remain in the dark, we do not move forward.
.
