The Silent Crisis in Women’s Healthcare
She arrived in the emergency room with a broken hip. There wasn’t a dramatic fall. No car accident. No traumatic injury. She turned or stood or maybe reached too far, and her body gave way. What came next was a grim statistic: thirty percent of women who suffer a hip fracture will die within the year. That’s not a fluke. That’s a crisis.
Dr. Vonda Wright shared this chilling truth on Mel Robbins’ podcast, where she described seeing woman after woman arriving at the hospital, stunned by their own fragility. These are the same women who spent their lives holding everyone else together—families, households, workplaces—but somewhere along the way, they forgot to hold themselves. They whisper through tears, “I don’t know how I got here.”
But the rest of us do.
It’s the slow burn of self-neglect disguised as selflessness. The years of skipped check-ups, swallowed symptoms, and brushed-off warning signs. It’s the pelvic pain that was never investigated, the bone loss that was never tested, the fatigue that was chalked up to being “just tired” from doing everything for everyone. And it's the societal narrative that aging is passive, that decline is inevitable, and that a woman in her 40s, 50s, or 60s should simply accept her body falling apart quietly.
This is where it gets dangerous—because we’ve normalized it. We’ve normalized leaking when we laugh, joint pain as background noise, loss of libido as inevitable, and chronic exhaustion as just “getting older.” What we haven’t normalized is advocating for ourselves. Investing in ourselves. Prioritizing ourselves like our lives depend on it. Because they do.
The healthcare system hasn't made it easy. Research has historically focused on men. Medical professionals are often undertrained in women’s hormonal health, perimenopause, and the subtle signs of serious conditions in female bodies. Too many of us have been told that what we’re experiencing is “just anxiety,” or that our symptoms are “normal for your age,” when in reality they’re signs of deeper imbalances or preventable deterioration.
But here's the truth no one hands us at our yearly physicals: we are not powerless. We are not doomed to become fragile or broken. Aging is not the enemy—neglect is.
There is immense power in prevention, in strength, in knowledge. Lifting weights isn’t just about looking toned; it’s about building the bone density that keeps you standing tall and living independently into your eighties. Strength training guards against osteoporosis, supports your metabolism, helps regulate your hormones, and boosts your mental clarity. It is a rebellion against the narrative that your best years are behind you. It’s not vanity. It’s vitality.
And don’t get me started on pelvic health. How many women are quietly suffering from incontinence or pain during intimacy and told it’s just part of the deal? It’s not. These things are treatable. Addressable. But only if we start talking about them. Only if we stop whispering and start demanding better.
We cannot wait for the system to catch up. We must be our own advocates. That means asking better questions at the doctor’s office. It means reading up, tracking symptoms, refusing to be brushed off. It means knowing that “I’m just tired” is not a diagnosis—and “just aging” is not an answer.
But advocacy isn’t just about confrontation—it’s about commitment. Committing to yourself the way you’ve committed to everyone else. Eating protein, sleeping deeply, lifting weights, taking your vitamins, drinking water—not because it’s trendy, but because it’s your foundation. Because your daughter is watching. Because your future self is depending on you.
Women need to stop apologizing for wanting to feel good. For wanting to move well. For wanting more from their bodies than just surviving. Wanting to thrive is not selfish—it’s revolutionary.
And maybe most importantly, we need to stop buying into the lie that it’s too late. It’s not too late at 40. Or 50. Or 65. I’ve seen women in their seventies reverse osteoporosis. I’ve seen them build muscle, rekindle their energy, discover new careers, new relationships, new confidence. We are not the victims of the passage of time. We are not withering. We are waking up.
The tide is turning. More women are speaking out. We’re starting to own our stories, our strength, our health. We’re lifting each other up—sometimes literally. We’re bringing pelvic floor therapy, hormone balance, resistance training, sexual health, and emotional wellbeing out of the shadows and into the light where they belong.
We are no longer content to be the afterthought in our own lives. We are the main event.
So let this be the reminder: your body is not broken. You are not broken. You are allowed to change. You are allowed to rise. But you must choose yourself—before the emergency room, before the crisis, before the fall.
This isn’t just about medicine. It’s about power. It’s about saying: I matter. I refuse to disappear. I refuse to be another woman wondering how I got here.
We know how. And now, we know better.