Diolch, Llywydd. I want to thank you, Plaid Cymru, for bringing this incredibly important debate to the Chamber today. On Monday night, I attended a local menopause cafe event run by Sarah Williams from Equality Counts, where women and those dealing with similar health-related issues came to discuss their experiences. Open spaces like menopause cafes and events like this in my community are undoubtedly so empowering.

At the cafe, women discussed the lack of awareness around menopause. The constituents have asked for a specialty clinic and for more flexible ways to access HRT for those suffering from menopause symptoms. Sarah has said to me that evidence suggests that women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are less likely to even take up HRT treatment, and that this is perpetuating health inequalities for the most vulnerable. The session also explored how menopause experiences are individual and nuanced. This is why we need compassionate cultural practitioners that practice without assumption of sexual orientation or gender identity, because this type of bias is deterring people from accessing support and treatment.

I want to emphasise that our experience of undiagnosed conditions, unexplained pain, the lack of treatment options are never about us as individuals. They are about a system that has always put the healthcare of heterosexual, straight, white males front and centre. And that's why, via social media, I asked women to share their experiences so I can share their voices here today, just as you have said, Sioned Williams. It is a wonderful opportunity to be able to do that.

One constituent said she wished that she could just feel listened to. Another told me about their experience of going to the GP regarding a chronic urinary tract infection, where they were told that there was nothing that can be done, and that the only thing to do is take paracetamol and have a bath. I have spoken to other women in my constituency who have undergone a late assessment for neurodivergence such as autism and ADHD. The current waiting list for that assessment is two years. Women in their late 30s and 40s have been denied the right to support their entire lifetime, simply because the signals for an assessment have been constructed around the way that young boys display signs of neurodivergence.

On another point, my constituent Samantha said that, 'There is no gynaecology ward at our local hospital.' To hear about a woman going through a late-term miscarriage next to people delivering their full-term babies, on the same ward as people going through an abortion, is not only heartbreaking but unacceptable.

Another constituent told me that she passed out from the pain of an intrauterine device insertion for endometriosis. She was told that the pain would be like a slight period cramp. It was only after attending a meeting with other women facing these same issues that she realised there is pain relief that she could have been administered during the procedure; she was just never told about it. She said to me, 'If you go to the dentist to have a tooth removed, no matter how wobbly, they will numb your gums. My procedure to have an IUD, through my cervix, came with no pain relief. I was so angry to realise that I could have just asked.'

The British Heart Foundation Cymru has found that women sometimes do not realise that they are having a heart attack because the pain of their period is worse than their symptoms—going into what you were saying earlier on, Delyth—because, as we have heard many times today, when you are a woman you are told that pain is something that you just have to live with.

So, whilst I applaud the societal changes that allow us to talk about health more openly, we must be aware that historic shame and bias still haunt our experiences of healthcare. And in addition, women's healthcare has always been seen as a single issue. Consequently, the complexity and diversity of many issues, like we've heard about today that have been raised, are often clustered together into one area, and this has led to that lack of research, awareness and investment, and we must do more to change this.

But I do also want to echo my colleagues today—Jenny Rathbone and Joyce Watson. I do believe that our Welsh Government health Minister gets this. I do believe that you don't see it as a single issue. I do believe that what you're trying to do is really to address this inequality. And I also want to say that we have some fantastic work already taking place across our communities. I don't want to lose sight of that. I am fortunate to have Wings Cymru in Bridgend, which is working to destigmatise period dignity. We have the wonderful menopause cafes, as I've mentioned. They are revolutionising the workplaces to be more inclusive. 

I want to end my contribution by thanking all those healthcare professionals—GPs, nurses, midwives and specialists—who are working tirelessly to listen and support women in these circumstances. We are up against a system, but that does not mean the system cannot change, and women are shouting loud enough. We must listen and we must act. Diolch.