'GP said my ovarian cancer symptoms were menopause'

Sbba Siddique says an earlier diagnosis may have avoided the need for treatment that left her with permanent disabilities

- MAYA OPPENHEIM

A woman has said her ovarian cancer diagnosis was delayed after her symptoms were wrongly dismissed as menopause or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) – accusing her doctor of misogyny and medically gaslighting her.

Sbba Siddique, a 55-year-old business owner, told The Independent that “unconscious bias and cultural incompetence” were also to blame for her delayed diagnosis. Ms Siddique, who lives in Berkshire, said she began to feel unwell in around October 2021, but was not diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer until March the following year.

“I was feeling really tired all the time. I had no energy. I was piling on weight that wasn’t there previously, despite not changing my eating habits. I was needing to wee more,” the mother of three recalled. “I was going back and forth with my GP trying to get an appointment. I couldn’t get a face-to-face – every consultation was on the phone or via online forms. That was part of the problem of the misdiagnosis.”

Her GP was “very dismissive” of her symptoms and attributed them to IBS or the menopause, she added. “At the end of the day, I’m not the expert, the GP is – I believed him,” she said.

Ms Siddique, a co-founder of Asian Star Radio, said she accepted her doctor’s diagnosis until a routine in-person appointment with her dermatologist, who sensed something was wrong. “She said: ‘Are you OK? Your tummy doesn’t look right.’ My tummy looked like I was six months pregnant,” she recalled. “I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t seen my dermatologist. I would have believed what my GP was saying. It would have got worse. I would have probably gone in by A&E admission.”