‘I had assumed I would be able to get the coil more or less straight away.’ ‘It was incredibly frustrating,’ says Diane, a former recruitment worker. Each time, the answer was they either did not provide the service, had no funding to do it, or lacked trained staff to fit the implant. During that time Diane was shunted between GP practices and local authority-run sexual health clinics.
In fact, it took almost a year from first requesting it from her GP to having an implant fitted in October 2019 at another practice. After all, every woman in the UK is entitled to free contraception, whether it’s the Pill or long-acting implants. Hormone-based IUDs prevent pregnancy by gradually releasing progestin to thicken mucus around the entrance to the womb, stopping sperm entering, while non-hormonal ones are made with copper, which acts as a spermicide.Īs well as providing long-acting contraception (the implants need replacing after five to ten years), the hormonal coil is also often recommended for women who, like Diane, suffer with excessively heavy periods, as the gradual release of hormones reduces the thickness of the lining of the womb, thereby lessening bleeding every month when the lining breaks down.īut what Diane assumed would be a straightforward process - accessing NHS contraceptive services - proved anything but.
Diane French-Finlay’s periods used to be so heavy and painful that for two to three days a month she was effectively housebound
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