Pulse ·

Endometriosis hospital admissions up 23% in a decade — AIHW

By Dr HB Lo, FACRRM 4 min read
Verdict Yes — worth knowing about

AIHW data published August 2026 shows 24,700 hospital admissions for endometriosis in Australia in 2024–25, a 23% increase over the decade. The hospitalisation rate has risen from 145 to 180 per 100,000 women and girls — five times faster than overall female hospital admissions over the same period.

Clinicians read the rise largely as progress: better awareness is translating into diagnoses previously denied or delayed. Ninety percent of admissions involved a surgical procedure (typically laparoscopy). Experts emphasise that comprehensive pain management, including physiotherapy, should be considered alongside surgical options, not only after them.

What just happened

New data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows 24,700 hospital admissions for endometriosis in Australia in 2024–25. That is a 23% increase over the past decade, against a backdrop of only 4.7% growth in overall female hospital admissions over the same period.

The hospitalisation rate now sits at 180 per 100,000 women and girls, up from 145 ten years ago. Nine in ten admissions involved a procedure — most commonly laparoscopy. Seven in ten were to private hospitals. And the proportion of non-procedural admissions — where women are hospitalised for pain management without surgery — rose from 6% to 9%, suggesting some improvement in access to multidisciplinary care pathways.

Endometriosis affects approximately one in seven Australian women aged 18 to 45. The condition involves tissue similar to the uterine lining growing outside the uterus — on the ovaries, fallopian tubes, bowel, and bladder — causing chronic pelvic pain, painful periods, pain during intercourse, and, in many cases, fertility difficulties. Average time to diagnosis in Australia has historically been seven to nine years from symptom onset.

The both-and

Rising numbers as a sign of progress

It would be easy to read 24,700 hospitalisations as evidence that endometriosis is becoming more common or more severe. The more defensible interpretation is that women are finally accessing care they were previously denied.

The advocacy community — a sustained push by women with endometriosis to be believed, diagnosed, and treated — has materially changed how the condition is discussed inside and outside clinical settings. Dr Marilla Druitt, obstetrician-gynaecologist and president of Pelvic Pain Victoria, was explicit in acknowledging this: the endo advocacy community “have done wonderful things” in raising the profile of a condition that was, for decades, dismissed as severe period pain.

In that light, a rising hospitalisation rate may reflect a cohort of women finally receiving laparoscopies — and the diagnoses that follow — that should have happened years earlier. If the underlying prevalence of endometriosis has not changed but diagnosis rates have improved, hospitalisation counts will rise as a backlog is cleared. This is not a crisis signal. It is a delayed system response to a longstanding gap in care.

The seven-to-nine-year diagnostic delay that has characterised Australian endometriosis care is not primarily a failure of technology. Laparoscopy has been the gold-standard diagnostic tool for decades. The delay has been driven by a cultural pattern of normalising severe menstrual pain — in patients, families, and clinical consultations alike — and by the predominantly female experience of the disease being weighted against in settings where it was not taken seriously.

The surgical-first problem

The counterpart concern in the same data is the proportion of admissions that involve a procedure. Ninety percent. That is a high surgical rate for a condition with a well-recognised role for non-surgical management.

Endometriosis pain has multiple drivers: the lesions themselves, central sensitisation, pelvic floor dysfunction, and comorbid conditions including irritable bowel syndrome and bladder pain syndrome. Surgery addresses lesions. It does not address sensitisation, muscular dysfunction, or comorbidities. Women who undergo laparoscopy and excision of endometriosis without addressing these other contributors frequently experience return of symptoms even where the lesion burden has been cleared.

Dr Druitt advocates for physiotherapy alongside or before surgery — particularly pelvic floor physiotherapy — as part of a genuinely multidisciplinary approach. The increase in non-procedural admissions from 6% to 9% over the decade may partly reflect this shift, but the majority of hospital episodes are still surgical.

The question worth holding is whether non-surgical pathways are adequately resourced. Pelvic pain physiotherapists, pain medicine specialists, and pelvic health nurse practitioners are not uniformly available across Australia. In rural and regional settings, they are often effectively unavailable. For a woman in regional Queensland or Western Australia with pelvic pain, the realistic pathway may be her GP, a referral, a wait, and a laparoscopy — because the multidisciplinary alternatives are simply not nearby.

My two cents

If you are in the one in seven, or you suspect you might be, this data matters to you in a specific way: the system is moving, slowly, toward taking endometriosis seriously. That shift is real.

What it does not mean is that care is uniformly available, or that a years-long diagnostic wait was an exception. It was common, and that is an important thing to name.

If your pain significantly affects your daily functioning and you have not had a specialist review, a referral to a gynaecologist with a specific interest in pelvic pain is worth asking your GP for. Endometriosis cannot be diagnosed from a symptom description or a general practice consultation — it requires laparoscopy or specialist imaging. And if surgery is recommended, it is reasonable to ask whether a pelvic floor physiotherapist assessment is part of the plan. For many women, it should be.

Verdict: yes — worth knowing about.

Sources cited

  1. “Better awareness drives more endometriosis hospital admissions” — ABC News, 28 August 2026. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-28/aihw-endometriosis-hospitalisations/107086172
  2. Endometriosis in Australia — Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/chronic-musculoskeletal-conditions/endometriosis-in-australia
  3. Pelvic Pain Victoria. https://www.pelvicpain.org.au

Frequently asked questions

  • My GP suggested a watch-and-see approach for my suspected endometriosis. Is that normal?

    It depends on the severity of your symptoms and your reproductive goals. A watchful approach may be reasonable for mild pain without fertility concerns, but significant impact on daily life warrants further investigation. A referral to a gynaecologist with interest in pelvic pain is a reasonable next step if symptoms are affecting you. Endometriosis requires direct visualisation (laparoscopy) or specialist imaging for diagnosis — a GP consultation alone cannot confirm or exclude it.

  • What is the difference between a procedural and non-procedural endometriosis admission?

    Procedural admissions involve a surgical procedure — usually laparoscopy to diagnose or remove endometrial tissue. Non-procedural admissions, which rose from 6% to 9% of the total over the decade, involve pain management and medical treatment without surgery. The increase in non-procedural admissions likely reflects improved access to multidisciplinary pelvic pain clinics and pain medicine services.