Dr Rachel O’Connor, an Irish doctor and women’s health specialist, underwent over ten hours of specialist endometriosis surgery in Warsaw in March 2025 after local health services deemed her stage-four endometriosis too severe to treat domestically, prompting her to call for urgent systemic improvements.
In Plain English: The Clinical Takeaway
- Endometriosis Progression: A chronic condition in which tissue like the inner lining of the womb grows elsewhere in the body, causing inflammation and scar tissue.
The Anatomy of a Decade-Long Diagnostic Delay
For more than twelve years, Dr Rachel O'Connor moved through a fragmented healthcare pathway before securing a definitive diagnosis. Her presentation began in adolescence with adolescence periods that weren’t unusual, alongside extreme monthly urinary pain and severe gastrointestinal dysfunction. During these episodes, she experienced being on the bathroom floor, unable to walk or move, enduring pain so severe for 48 hours that it would then stop only to repeat the next month. Medical encounters across emergency departments, general practice, and university campus clinics repeatedly attributed her symptoms to recurrent urinary tract infections, prescribing repeated courses of antibiotics that failed to alter her disease progression. She also experienced chronic bowel habits that were never normal and was told she was sensitive to food.
By age 28, diagnostic ultrasound imaging revealed a series of pelvic cysts, leading clinicians to suggest she manage elevated endometriosis without active surgical intervention. She developed heavy menstrual bleeding lasting a minimum of ten days per month, alongside rectal and vaginal hemorrhaging. Balancing professional duties as a hospital doctor on clinical rotations, she routinely required iron and blood transfusions immediately prior to morning ward rounds to combat chronic fatigue.
Surgical Realities and Multi-Organ Resection in Warsaw
Referred to a gynaecologist consultant in Ireland after securing an initial stage-four diagnosis during a self-funded 2023 trip to Warsaw, Dr O’Connor was informed that her disease severity exceeded domestic surgical capabilities. Returning to Poland for specialist intervention, she faced additional financial strain when the Government’s publicly funded fertility treatment scheme declined to cover egg preservation for endometriosis sufferers. This administrative barrier necessitated self-funding two rounds of IVF abroad before her definitive operation.
In March 2025, operating teams performed a ten-and-a-half-hour procedure that involved extensive resections. Her surgeon later told her she should not have survived.
Public Funding Excludes Fertility Preservation Procedures
Government data indicates that established specialist services evaluated almost 1,200 new patients and performed over 1,400 related surgeries.
Despite these structural expansions, public funding exclusions persist for fertility preservation procedures, leaving patients with complex reproductive preservation needs to manage out-of-pocket costs independently.
Official Responses and Ongoing Advocacy
Author Seeks to Change the System
I know I won’t give up on changing the system, not just for women but for doctors too.
References
- RTÉ News: Doctor calls for better endometriosis care after surgery abroad
