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Right now, millions of Canadian women are experiencing the debilitating symptoms of menopause: hot flashes, sleep disturbances, mood swings, anxiety, heart palpitations and more. Many will suffer at work because of their symptoms. Some may even quit because of it.
It’s time to lift the stigma and get women the menopause care they deserve, says Janet Ko, president and co-founder of the Menopause Foundation of Canada, a national non-profit advocacy organization.
“When these challenging symptoms are dismissed or left unaddressed, they become a barrier to women achieving their full potential,” Ms. Ko says.
Janet Ko, The Menopause Foundation of CanadaSupplied
In an era when Canada needs all the talent it can get, our country can’t afford to ignore menopause, she adds. After all, women over 40 make up one-quarter of Canada’s workforce.
“We have never had so many women in midlife playing such a vital role in the economy,” Ms. Ko says. “We are calling on medical institutions, health care providers and government to invest in ensuring that all women have access to high-quality menopause care.”
It’s a view shared by Viktoria Friedrich, country president and general manager, pharma, Bayer Canada. She says that with enough national will and intergovernmental cooperation, Canada can take the lead on this issue by creating a national strategy on menopause.
“Bayer definitely supports bringing this [to the] top of the agenda and advancing the discussions that will see Canada bend the curve on this topic,” she says.
The economic impact of menopause
Studies have shown that symptoms of menopause can impact job performance and hamper career progression, and that has a sizeable impact on the Canadian economy.
In a 2023 report from the Menopause Foundation of Canada, 95 per cent of women surveyed said they experienced menopause symptoms, including hot flashes, sleep disturbances, mood swings, anxiety, urinary incontinence and heart palpitations. One-third of women said their menopause symptoms negatively impact their performance at work, and one in five said they believed their symptoms could affect their career progression.
According to the report, unmanaged symptoms of menopause cost the economy $3.5-billion per year.
Viktoria Friedrich, Bayer CanadaSupplied
Ms. Ko knows the challenges of unmanaged menopause symptoms well. She was 48 when she stepped down from a senior vice-president position at a large Ontario-based company due to what she thought was extreme exhaustion and burnout. It wasn’t until several years later, looking back, that Ms. Ko realized that her symptoms were due to perimenopause (the years leading up to the end of fertility).
“I had no idea there were 30-plus symptoms that I could experience, and that perimenopause can last anywhere from two to ten years prior to having your last period,” she says.
Ms. Friedrich says that Bayer recently conducted a survey with its female employees, who make up 60 per cent of its workforce. The company found that 37 per cent of women have experienced menopause symptoms that have negatively affected them while at work, yet just over half were aware that there was any sort of support system in place. (Bayer, along with other large companies including Sun Life, BMO and IKEA, has joined the Menopause Foundation of Canada’s Menopause Works Here campaign, which provides resources to increase menopause awareness within organizations).
“Obviously [the results] were a call to action,” says Ms. Friedrich.
Since then, Bayer has committed to ensuring perimenopause and menopause awareness among both men and women at the organization. The company also offers flexible working hours and support for women to have frank, one-on-one conversations with managers about issues they might be experiencing, she says.
Taking steps to change the national conversation
Ms. Friedrich says that some of the key steps to establishing a national menopause strategy include creating national standards, increasing funding for research into menopause and increasing cooperation among provinces and territories.
“We need to really strengthen the intergovernmental coordination to establish a national standard of care across provinces and territories,” she says.
Because health care is within provincial purview, it results in uneven services, she adds. Very few provinces offer menopause care clinics and coverage for menopause hormone therapy (MHT) – a key treatment for menopause symptoms – varies across provinces and territories.
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Physicians also need to improve their knowledge of menopause care, says Ms. Ko.
“Not only do women themselves not understand menopause, but a lot of our health care providers don’t understand menopause,” she says. Doctors should receive comprehensive training about menopause, beginning in medical school and throughout their careers. Pharmacists can also play a much bigger role in educating women about treatment options, adds Ms. Friedrich.
Both Ms. Friedrich and Ms. Ko point out that while health therapies related to male aging, such as treatment for erectile disfunction, have been normalized, there is still stigma associated with asking for MHT and having frank conversations about menopause.
One of the ways to change that is to reframe the way menopause is viewed, says Ms. Ko. “When we look at menopause as a significant health transition, we start treating it differently as individuals and as a health care system.”
Ms. Ko says it is her organization’s hope that Generation X will be the last generation to be left in the dark when it comes to proper menopause care.
“We now have a national menopause movement and it’s gaining momentum.”
Advertising feature produced by Globe Content Studio with Bayer Canada. The Globe’s editorial department was not involved.