Menopause centre still in planning stages a year after announcement

The official Opposition is accusing Nova Scotia’s PC government of leaving women without a promised menopause centre. 

Last October, Premier Tim Houston announced plans for the Menopause Centre of Excellence as part of his re-election campaign. The proposed centre will provide services dedicated to managing perimenopause, menopause and post-menopause, and alleviate pressure on both primary care physicians and the IWK hospital.

Since then, little movement has been made on opening the centre. On Nov. 13, the Nova Scotia NDP released a statement saying they are demanding “accountability for Nova Scotians who were promised a Menopause Centre of Excellence by the Houston government.”

The need for menopause care

Avai Kochanoff, a financial planner based in Hammonds Plains, says she felt “left to suffer” when seeking perimenopause care in the province.

Kochanoff first spoke to her primary care physician about perimenopause in her 30s, and was told she was “not old enough” to experience symptoms. She says this was the start of years of dismissal, prolonged wait times and “no quality of life.”

“For three years, I was hemorrhaging,” said Kochanoff, who had 27-day long periods, with only three to four days in between. 

In an interview with The Signal, she described constantly advocating for herself only to feel ignored and left facing more wait times. “I fell through the gaps, and not because of a lack of trying on my end,” she said.

Kochanoff is not alone. The IWK Foundation’s women’s health survey summary reports that menopause, perimenopause and hormonal health are among the top issues that Maritime women want to see prioritized. 

The report said that 56 per cent of Maritime women experience health issues that “actively disrupt their day-to-day life.”

Gaps in knowledge

Shawna O’Hearn and Maria Migas work to improve care for women and gender diverse individuals through the organization they co-founded, the Menopause Society of Nova Scotia (MSNS). 

Migas, a family physician, said “she was quite surprised to experience the impact of menopause.

“I thought, if I’m not feeling prepared for it and I’m a physician, how many other women are kind of suffering through and not recognizing what’s happening?” she said. 

O’Hearn, a health administrator and occupational therapist, said gaps in knowledge are one of the biggest challenges in menopause care.

“Many women don’t even know what perimenopause is,” she said. “When they go to their doctor, they don’t have the information, the language, the knowledge, to be able to have an informed conversation with their health provider.”

Migas said there is also a knowledge gap for health-care practitioners.

“Many doctors and health-care providers who see women in midlife, or gender diverse individuals with menopause in midlife, don’t feel prepared or adequately trained to manage some of the symptoms.”

This results in primary care physicians referring patients to obstetrics-gynecology, a wait that can be up to three years, she said.

Both O’Hearn and Migas are collaborating with the provincial government on the proposed Menopause Centre of Excellence. 

Status of the centre

Health Minister Michelle Thompson could not provide a timeline for the centre’s opening. She said “the conversations, and the discussions, and the planning are well under way. They have been for a period of time.

“We’re not dragging our feet, but we also want to be intentional about it,” she said. 

Susan Leblanc, NDP critic for the status of women, says the centre is “another promise to address health-care issues by Tim Houston and his government which has not yet been fulfilled.”

A year after its announcement, Leblanc has questions about the progress of the project.

“Is it a physical space? Where is that physical space? Who will be referred there? What kind of care will be offered there?” she asked. 

“We could know these things, but the fact that we don’t know any of it suggests that, well, I don’t want to presume, but suggest that maybe some of that work isn’t even done yet,” she said.