Beyond the waitlists: A systems approach to bridge the gender pain gap
Imagine being in so much pain that you can’t pick up your child, feeling too uncomfortable to drive, or too sore to work. Now imagine being told you have to wait years for help, that little can be done or, worse, that your symptoms aren’t real.
As we approach International Women’s day, it’s sobering to be reminded that up to one in four Australian women will experience pelvic pain that profoundly impacts their ability to undertake daily activities, and over half of the 13,000 women surveyed in a landmark report ‘Bridging the Gender Pain Gap’, said they faced ‘significant obstacles to accessing appropriate streamlined, and affordable care’.
Planned work at the University of Melbourne, with some of our closest partners, not only recognises the seriousness of women’s pain, but also seeks to address these barriers to getting help for pain, and provide effective healthcare treatment on a system level.
What we know The 2025 Victorian Government report, Bridging the Gender Pain Gap, confirmed systemic unmet needs of thousands of women. The data show challenges are more pronounced for women from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, as well as those living with disability, the LGBTIQA+ community, and women in rural communities.
In gynaecology practice, this manifests as a profound mismatch between clinical need and system flow. Data from one Victorian hospital reveals that some women wait longer than two years for specialist pelvic pain services.
As a paediatrician, I know that early intervention determines a lifetime trajectory; for any patient, waiting years for a specialist is not "routine”— for women on these waitlists, it is a period of avoidable suffering and functional decline that affects not only them but those they live with and care for.
Transforming Healthcare through systemics reform
To achieve system transformation, we need an approach that allows women to access best practice care where and when they need it.
This can include supporting frontline clinicians with best practice guidance, support and upskilling, harnessing artificial intelligence for more efficient triaging to specialist care, equipping women with resources to better manage their pain, and greater accessibility to multidisciplinary care for women on waiting lists.
The Royal Women’s Hospital and our team at the University of Melbourne are collaborating to design and deliver the structural outcomes that provide clearer referral pathways for patients and doctors, as well as improve support for non-surgical multidisciplinary care.
– "For too long, the gap in our care pathways has forced women to choose between an unacceptably long public wait or significant private costs." — Professor Harriet Hiscock
The way forward
We plan to co-design with women, primary care providers and specialists, evidence-based tools and resources that women can use to self-manage their pain while they wait for a specialist appointment. This shifts the model from a passive waitlist to an active, person-centred care journey that respects language, autonomy, and cultural diversity.
We aim to streamline entry points to effective multidisciplinary interventions with physiotherapists, dieticians, nurses, psychologists, and more. We want to ensure women have options when approaching the healthcare system with their pain.
Inefficiencies and admin-heavy triage processes can drain our clinicians and professional staff, leading to burnout. Developing an AI-powered system could provide specialists’ time for high-value care rather than navigating challenging referral loops.
We should reflect on the fact that for too long, women’s pain has been minimised. By working to fix these structural pathways, we are finally ensuring that "care" is something women receive, rather than something they simply wait for.