Women are regularly waiting more than a year for “urgent” gynaecology appointments in some areas of Northern Ireland.
Records show 47,780 women were waiting on a gynaecology outpatient appointment at the end of March 2026, according to figures released by the Department of Health.
The department has recently invested millions in an effort to address waiting times, a spokeswoman said, adding that women’s health is a “key area of focus” for the Health Minister.
A women’s rights charity said the long waiting lists are “destroying” some women’s mental health.
One condition affected by long waiting lists is endometriosis.
A chronic condition with symptoms including heavy menstrual bleeding and chronic pelvic pain, endometriosis affects more than 10% of women worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Mairead*, a 37-year-old woman from Derry, has lived with the condition for more than 25 years. She said she first went to doctors with symptoms when she was 12; however a diagnosis did not come till years later.
“Even a hysterectomy won’t cure me. You could take out my abdominal organs, they’ll still be endometriosis and it will kill me in another way,” she said of her condition.
A member of an endometriosis support group in Derry, she said the waiting list figures would not come as a surprise for women who lived with the condition for years before receiving a diagnosis.
The average time for an endometriosis diagnosis in Northern Ireland was nine years and 10 months in 2025, according to Endometriosis UK.
Mairead said her pain and other symptoms were often not taken seriously by doctors.
“I went to A&E and was like, I can’t manage this pain, this pain is extreme, it’s not normal,” she said, describing one incident.
“And (the doctor) said, ‘well, you walked in’. My pain was dismissed by a man because I walked into A&E.”
Northern Ireland has only one endometriosis centre accredited by the British Society for Gynaecological Endoscopy, as well as very few clinical specialist nurses.
Waiting lists
There are significant regional differences in the time women spend waiting for an “urgent” gynaecology appointment.
The South Eastern Health and Social Care (HSC) Trust had the longest average wait for an urgent gynaecology appointment, at 77 weeks, almost 18 months.
The Southern HSC Trust had an average urgent wait of 56 weeks, followed by the Western Trust at 37 weeks, Belfast at 31 weeks and the Northern Trust at 18 weeks.
Routine appointments are subject to longer waits. The Western HSC Trust had an average routine waiting time of 130 weeks, while the South Eastern Trust had an average wait of 95 weeks.
Red flag appointments, for patients with suspected cancer, are given the highest priority and have considerably shorter average waits.
The Department of Health’s outpatient waiting time target is for at least 50% of patients to wait no longer than nine weeks, with no patient waiting longer than 52 weeks.
No Health and Social Care Trust met this target at the end of March 2026.
A Department of Health spokeswoman said that “significant work is under way across Northern Ireland to address gynaecology waiting times and reduce regional disparities.”
“In 2025/2026, £4.9 million was invested to improve gynaecology services and tackle the longest waiting times.”
The number of patients waiting more than three years for an outpatient appointment fell from 13,650 in September 2025 to 2,103 in March 2026, they added.
Strategy
The waiting list figures come amid wider concern about the state of women’s healthcare in Northern Ireland.
Research from the Women’s Resource and Development Agency (WRDA) highlighted how Northern Ireland remains the only jurisdiction in the UK and Ireland without a dedicated Women’s Health strategy.
“The advantage of a strategy is that it’s a long-term look at things and then figuring out actions that address these problems,” a spokeswoman for the WRDA said.
The WRDA spokeswoman further said that a strategy should address the long waits facing women accessing gynaecology services.
“Long waiting lists in gynaecology and long waiting lists in other areas of women’s health, they intersect with each other. Imagine you are sitting languishing on a gynaecology waiting list, it’s destroying your mental health, and you try and get on the mental health waiting list, and you wait just as long.”
A Department of Health spokeswoman said that “Women’s health is a key area of focus for both the Health Minister and the Department, with work continuing across the system to improve services.”
“Work to develop a Women’s Health Action Plan for Northern Ireland is ongoing. The Department intends to publish the Action Plan later this year following receipt and consideration of the final report of a recent women’s health public listening exercise.”
The Department said planned investment will expand endometriosis capacity on a local and regional level for complex endometriosis through the Regional Endometriosis Services in Belfast and Western HSC Trusts.