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Opinion | Why so many Chinese women feel invisible to their gynaecologist

  • A viral video on Weibo has sparked discussion on painful medical tools and the lack of care women suffer during gynaecology appointments
  • While pain relief treatments such as epidurals during labour remain uncommon in China, hospitals can still do more to provide comfort and communicate with patients

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Despite the Chinese government pushing for epidurals, only 30 per cent of patients had access to them as of 2022, according to the National Health Commission. Photo: Shutterstock
When I was pregnant last year, the required monthly visits to the gynaecologist’s were my worst fear. It was the one place where I didn’t feel human but rather like a vessel, or a piece of meat.
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The first thing the doctor would say to me was, “Take off your underwear and lie on the table”. Then, she would squeeze some gel on my belly and start rolling an ultrasound probe up and down my skin with her right hand. She would type on a keyboard with her left hand when she spotted something on the screen.

The process usually lasted 15 minutes. The whole time, the doctor never spoke to me directly. She occasionally shouted incomprehensible measurements at her assistant, who recorded them on a diagram of the human uterus.

It was a strange and uncomfortable experience. They were examining me, but I felt entirely irrelevant.

I am not the only one who has felt this way. Earlier this month, a post went viral on Weibo, with a blogger calling the speculum – a tool used in pelvic exams – “a modern-day torture instrument for women”. The tool has two long blades that look like a duck’s bill. A doctor parts the woman’s labia and inserts the speculum and then slowly opens the blades to look inside and inspect the cervix.
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The blogger shared her experience of being at the doctor’s and the discomfort she felt during her appointment, wondering why there haven’t been any improvements.

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