The New Virgin Media Documentary Every Irish Woman Needs to Watch

If you’ve ever sat in a GP’s waiting room feeling quietly furious that your pain was brushed off as stress, or been told that what you’re experiencing is “just part of being a woman”, you are not alone. Not even close. A new documentary airing on Monday 19th Oct on Virgin Media One is set to put that exact experience front and centre — and it makes for essential, at times rage-inducing, viewing.

Health Hysteria: Are Women Being Gaslit? is the latest film in Virgin Media Television’s Home Truths documentary strand and it’s fronted by presenter Katja Mia, who came to the subject not as an outside observer but as someone who lived it. Katja spent years dealing with debilitating symptoms before finally receiving a diagnosis of endometriosis, and that personal experience drives every frame of this documentary.

It airs on Monday 19 October at 9pm on Virgin Media One and Virgin Media Play.

The numbers don’t lie

The film opens by confronting the scale of what many women in Ireland already know instinctively. Research from Laya Healthcare’s Gender Health Gap report found that more than half of women aged 25 to 44 have felt dismissed when discussing health concerns with a medical professional. As of this month, there are 923 patients on the HSE outpatient waitlist for specialist endometriosis services, with over a third of them waiting more than six months to be seen.

The HSE acknowledged in a statement to Virgin Media Television that “building sufficient national capacity to meet demand for endometriosis care will take time”. Which is cold comfort if you’re one of the 309 people currently waiting.

Women who had to fight every step of the way

The documentary introduces us to several Irish women whose stories will feel painfully familiar to many. Sarah Lee, a 28-year-old special needs assistant from Cork, spent years in chronic pain before finally being diagnosed with endometriosis at 25. When she exhausted her options at home she did what a growing number of Irish women have found themselves doing — she travelled to Greece to access specialist treatment.

Then there’s Denise Keogh, whose journey to diagnosis took 13 years. Thirteen years of severe, life-altering pain. At various points medical professionals suggested her symptoms were psychosomatic. Denise, who was also preparing for surgery at the same clinic in Athens, describes how she had to take out a significant loan just to access the care she needed. The financial, emotional and physical toll is almost impossible to overstate.

Katja also meets researcher Dr Jenny Cooney-Quane at University College Cork, who has been studying medical dismissal and symptom invalidation. Some of the accounts she shares are startling — patients told their pain was simply “part of being a woman”, or that they were being “hysterical”. The word that gives the documentary its title, of course, has its roots in the ancient Greek for uterus. Women being told they’re hysterical is not a new problem. It’s a very, very old one.

Beyond endometriosis

What makes Health Hysteria genuinely valuable is that it doesn’t stop at reproductive health. The film also examines PMDD through the experience of researcher Samantha Trevaskis, who opens up about her lengthy journey to diagnosis and the difficult decisions women face when managing their symptoms alongside plans for a family.

Entrepreneur and athlete Sharon Keegan shares how she received an ADHD diagnosis in adulthood after years of being treated for anxiety and depression. It’s a pattern that will resonate with many women who only began to understand their own neurodivergence after decades of misattributed symptoms.

Perhaps the most sobering story belongs to Pauline O’Shea, who suffered a serious cardiac event after the birth of her third child. Despite significant warning signs her symptoms were repeatedly put down to post-partum and hormonal changes. She went on to have multiple heart attacks before undergoing double bypass surgery and now lives with lifelong heart disease. The documentary highlights how women can experience cardiovascular symptoms very differently from men — a fact that the medical community has been frustratingly slow to integrate into standard care.

The film also turns a careful eye on what happens when women, exhausted by being dismissed, turn to the internet for answers. Journalist Shauna Bowers discusses how social media has genuinely helped connect women with support and awareness around conditions like endometriosis. But misinformation expert Dr David Robert Grimes is on hand to examine the murkier side — the wellness influencers, the expensive supplements, the unverified therapies that can prey on people who are desperate and out of options.

Thought-provoking, deeply personal and urgently relevant, Health Hysteria: Are Women Being Gaslit? is the kind of documentary that puts words to experiences many women have been quietly carrying for years. It’s worth setting a reminder for.

Health Hysteria: Are Women Being Gaslit? airs Monday 19 October at 9pm on Virgin Media One and Virgin Media Play.