A group of women and girls have protested outside Leinster House for better endometriosis care in Ireland.
They said there are outstanding issues with the new national endometriosis framework announced last October.
Endometriosis is a chronic disease in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus which causes inflammation and scar tissue to form in the pelvic region and sometimes in other parts of the body.
The protesters said the Endometriosis Surgery Abroad Interim Scheme (ESAIS) which reimburses women for endometriosis treatment abroad is limited in its list of approved centres.
The HSE reimburses upfront for treatment they access abroad.
The protest was organised by the Her Voice Project. Among the protesters was Ciara Whelan who said she has been waiting for over 20 years for an official diagnosis.
She is travelling to Greece in April for specialised excision surgery and a hysterectomy, which she hopes will improve her quality of life.
'No experts' to treat endometriosis
Ms Whelan said there are "no experts" to treat endometriosis in the country, forcing women with no option but to seek treatment abroad.
"There is no funding upfront, so I will have to pay about € 20,000 to go over. The only consultants on that list are not excision specialists."
Ms Whelan said she also suffers with adenomyosis, a condition where the lining of the womb starts growing into the muscle in the wall of the womb.
She said a hysterectomy "seems to be the best way for me to move forward and get a better quality of life".
"It’s terrifying to have to go abroad to that. It’s expensive. It’s scary to be in a different country. I have to do that abroad and then fly home. No woman should have to do that."
Ella O'Riordan was holding a placard that said: "I should be in school". The 15-year-old said she "cannot get the proper care here in Ireland".
Her consultant has signed paperwork for her to receive the appropriate treatment abroad, she said.
"But there is nowhere for me to go abroad that we have found, because of my age. They don’t believe me. They think I am just being dramatic, trying to get off school. But I’m not. I should be in school, being able to do what all my friends are doing."
Campaign groups say around 300,000 women in Ireland have the disease and 30,000 of these are complex cases.
Sinn Féin Senator Maria McCormack met with Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill to discuss the issue this evening.
"The minister understands that the level of care for women and girls living with this debilitating condition needs to improve drastically.
"The minister has agreed that there will be GP and consultant training in Endometriosis treatment, with specialised training in radiography, to enable early detection and diagnosis of the condition.
"She has also committed to review the ESAIS scheme in terms of adding hospitals in Greece, Italy and Romania."
Dept 'committed to expanding specialist endometriosis services'
In a statement, the Department of Health said it is "committed to expanding specialist endometriosis services and improving support services for women with endometriosis".
"Most endometriosis cases can be managed at primary care level with the assistance of GPs. Some patients will require referral to general gynaecology or multi-disciplinary care at specialist regional or supra-regional centres," it said.
The Department also said the new framework "sets out for the first time in Ireland, a defined clinical care pathway for women and girls with endometriosis".
It said Minister Carroll MacNeill has set out "several actions to accelerate access to care for women affected by this debilitating conditions".
These include extra funding of €500,000 to the HSE to increase surgeries for women waiting and gynaecologists here receiving the necessary training and holding the "required skillset and expertise to treat and manage endometriosis at a mild-moderate level".
It said clinicians working in specialist endometriosis services have attended Endometriosis Intensive Courses in Europe and that the HSE is "supporting and encouraging services in Ireland to pursue British Society for Gynaecological Endoscopy accreditation".
"The HSE is supporting women with access to treatment abroad through the Endometriosis Surgery Abroad Interim Scheme (ESAIS), which opened on 18 September 2025," the Department added.
