Decades after her diagnosis, Adrienne Clarkson calls for better endometriosis care
Former Canadian governor-general Adrienne Clarkson is advocating for improved healthcare access and diagnostics for endometriosis patients. She highlights the long-standing systemic failures in treating the condition, which affects millions and carries a significant economic burden.
Why it matters
Public advocacy from high-profile figures helps bring attention to chronic conditions that are often under-researched and poorly managed in public health systems.
Adrienne Clarkson, former governor-general of Canada, at her Toronto home on Oct. 1. Ms. Clarkson says Canada has failed to make progress on endometriosis. Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
More than six decades after being diagnosed with endometriosis, former governor-general Adrienne Clarkson considers herself “one of the very lucky ones.”
At 21, after learning she had the painful inflammatory disease, Ms. Clarkson soon had surgery at Toronto General Hospital. She credits her gynecologist at the time, Douglas Cannell, for preserving part of an ovary.
At the time, a nurse told her any other surgeon would have done a hysterectomy because her situation was “a mess.” Dr. Cannell spent two hours in the operating room with her.
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