More than half of London GPs have treated FGM victim

A new survey has revealed more than half of GPs in London have treated a patient who has been a victim of female genital mutilation (FGM) in the past year.

The research was carried out by Dr Comfort Momoh, who is responsible for running a dedicated FGM clinic at St Thomas' Hospital in central London.

According to her findings, 57 per cent of the GPs who took part in the survey admitted to seeing an FGM victim in the last 12 months.

Dr Momoh told the Evening Standard that much more needs to be done to ensure doctors have the right level of knowledge regarding the approach to take with FGM.

She explained: "Most of the women I see at the clinic say when they spoke to their GP they didn’t know where to refer them to. Because of their workload they hardly come [for training]."

Dr Momoh went on to reveal she would like to set up a new programme, whereby medical professionals with a great deal of knowledge regarding FGM could hold educational lunch time sessions.

The survey questioned 67 GPs from health centres all over the city. Despite the relatively small sample size, Dr Momoh believes the results can be generalised to the whole of the capital.

Posted by David Smith