One of the top search terms that lands on this blog is “are pap smears mandatory?”. It’s great that this question is being asked because it signals a tipping point in health care. The era of uninformed trust in one’s doctor appears to be ending.
Cancer screening is and always has been optional, including pap smears to check for cervical cancer. Unfortunately, the fact that pap smears are optional is not always made clear. Unlike other cancer screening, pap smears are opportunistically included when women visit their doctors. In fact, pap smears have been presented so persistently as a vital part of care that many women haven’t thought to question this practice.
Media messaging and a lack of informed consent have made it challenging to uncover the facts about pap smears. But this is changing. More and more women are asking questions and discovering the potential for harm that can come from routine screening.
https://www.kevinmd.com/2009/11/informed-consent-missing-pap-smears-cervical-cancer-screening.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8173287/
https://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.h6080
forwomenseyesonly 
Almost every woman who had an IUD inserted has a horror story of terrible pain. The procedure is a torture. And about half of that pain comes from the medical professional measuring the uterus. What I can’t understand is that any uterus can be measured safely, accurately and totally painlessly with ultrasound, yet the sadistic medical system choses to do it by shoving a rod onto the woman’s cervix. Why? Just because it is faster and easier for those medical sadists? Or is there another reason for causing women such terrible pain?
That’s just how health”care” systems operate all over the world. Definitely the case in Australia. They either blatantly lie, or use meaningless statistics.
Luckily I have never had an IUD (my partner was aware what is done to women, so he didn’t want me to be tortured and instead chose to have a vasectomy for himself). But I had a first hand experience of how medical statistics are collected. Before it happened, I already knew that even the most sadistic procedures where the patient is screaming from pain and ends up being severely traumatised are recorded in medical records as “well tolerated” and “uneventful”. But then I saw with my own eyes how these lies are created. It was during the pandemic when the government was forcing everyone into having vaccines. I had a severe allergic reaction after the first dose, so I even took photos and had a witness, because I thought it would be sufficient for proving that I shouldn’t have any further vaccine doses. But the govt forced me to go to the vaccination centre for the second dose. The medical worker there went through all the standard questions, asking me if I had any adverse reactions. I said “yes!” and showed her the photos. She nodded and ticked “no” on her computer screen. And then when I questioned this outrageous behaviour, she dismissed me and proceeded to ticking “the patient was given sufficient opportunity to ask questions”.
So, what is the point of such questionnaires, reports and statistics ? To give the governments and the medical systems the tool for coveting their backside and for getting the justification for doing whatever they want. Definitely not to protect our health!
I don’t know about other countries, but in Australia the top priorities of the healthcare system are:
For the Medicare/taxpayer-funded health care:
1. Harvest as much personal data as possible.
2. Report that data to the government for surveillance.
3. Cover their own ass.
4. Cut as many corners as possible to make healthcare easier for the government, budget and politicians.
For the private health care:
1. Make maximum profits.
2. Collect personal data for profit maximisation and for reporting it to the government the government demands it.
If any of it that means not acting in the interest of the patients – it’s the patient’s bad luck. The health, wellbeing and the interests of the patients are not a priority at all.
It is a known fact that many Australians avoid seeking medical help because of privacy concerns. The system promises to keep all data “confidential”, but we all know that there is no such thing. Our personal data is shared with thousands paper-pushers and surveillance agencies.
Australian Privacy Act (NPP 8) says “individuals must have the option of not identifying themselves when entering into transactions with a health agency”, but in reality it is impossible to get truly anonymous medical help. So the people are forced to avoid seeing doctors. Which works great for the government: the force everyone to pay Medicare tax, so the more people are avoiding using the system, the better is for the government budget.