Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has said women with complex, severe endometriosis have been failed by a lack of understanding in Ireland.
RTÉ News has been in contact with women living with endometriosis who report being dismissed by the health system in Ireland, which they say fails to recognise their suffering.
Endometriosis is a debilitating disease where tissue, similar to the lining of the womb, grows in other parts of the body. In some cases, it affects organs like the bladder and bowel and patients with the disease often have chronic pain.
The Endometriosis Association of Ireland has said hundreds of women are travelling abroad for surgery due to a lack of specialist services in Ireland.
RTÉ News has been in contact with women living with endometriosis who report being dismissed by the health system in Ireland, which they say fails to recognise their suffering.
Thirty-one-year-old Amie Berns from Co Wicklow has stage three endometriosis and has been struggling since the age of 14 with really bad periods.
She said it took five years to be diagnosed in a hospital in Ireland, and believes that the experts and specialists are not available in Ireland to help her.
Ms Berns says she is in constant pain and has been in and out of hospital over the last ten weeks.
She said that the disease has impacted her whole life.
"I have been struggling to have a social life and do a lot of things in my day. I have been in such severe urinary retention that I have a catheter in, I am 31."
Woman records searing insight of living with endometriosis
She said that the disease has taken her away from her husband and son and that she cannot get the help she needs in Ireland.
She is planning to go to Romania for excision surgery later this year.
Ms Berns said: "It took my whole 20s from me because the disease took everything from me, down to that we have had to buy an automatic car because I couldn't use the clutch."
She said she has to sleep with a pregnancy pillow every night, which she says is a reminder that she may never be able to have more children due to the disease.
Ms Berns says she has been told by two gynecologists in Ireland that her condition is too complex to be treated here and that she needs to go abroad for treatment.
'Made feel I was a hypochondriac'
Lucy Byrne from Cabinteely in Dublin travelled to Romania for treatment was put on the pill to deal with symptoms of endometriosis.
She was in constant pain from the age of 17 but she said she was made feel that she was a hypochondriac.
"I was immediately put on the pill which stopped my symptoms for a few years until breakthrough symptoms occurred, and in my 20s the pain began to affect my everyday life.
"When I went to the GP I was told it was IBS, I was told it was anxiety, depression, I was offered anti-depressants. I was essentially made feel I was a hypochondriac and that period pain is just part of being a woman, which is not accurate."
She said the pain was unbearable.
"I would be screaming crying in the car and begging my mum to let me go to school. I would be throwing up. I couldn't believe how bad the pain was. My mum had similar pain and she just said that's just how it is for us, but now she thinks she had it too."
Experts needed to perform excision surgery, says woman with endometriosis
Ms Byrne was told by a doctor here that he would not operate near her reproductive organs during surgery as her fertility was more important.
"He was more concerned with preserving my fertility than addressing my everyday pain so that is when I knew I would go abroad."
Ms Byrne went to Bucharest for surgery and she said endometriosis was found all over her body during an MRI.
"They saw it right away, they said I had endometriosis and adenomyosis. My MRI lit up like a Christmas tree. She was able to point out all the sections it was in, it was in numerous organs."
Ms Byrne says she has improved since returning from Romania and her everyday pain has reduced, however due to the adenomyosis there is not much can be done without a hysterectomy.
She says the disease has impacted every single aspect of her life, including jobs she couldn't keep, her relationship with her husband and finances.
Ms Byrne added that it is ridiculous that women with the disease are still begging to be heard and begging to be seen in Ireland.
