Lack of health care worsens women's life quality-WHO

* Unmarried women, teens, sex workers lack maternity care

* Inadequate aid for mental health problems, violent attacks

* U.N. agency says women deprived their full potential

Recasts with quotes from WHO director-general)

By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Despite living six to eight years longer than men, women lack essential health care throughout their lives, particularly as teenagers and elderly people, the World Health Organisation said on Monday.

In a report, the WHO said that women around the world are "denied a chance to develop their full human potential" because many critical medical needs are ignored.

"Women generally live longer than men, but their lives are not necessarily healthy or happy," Margaret Chan, the head of the United Nations health agency, said at the WHO on Monday.

Though women tend to seek out medical services more often than men -- particularly before, during and after pregnancy -- they often fail to get adequate treatment to cope with violence, depression and problems related to old age, such as dementia.

"The obstacles that stand in the way of better health for women are not primarily technical or medical in nature. They are social and political," Chan said.

Childbirth assistance can be particularly hard to access for unmarried and marginalised women, teenagers and sex workers, WHO said in its first attempt to log differences between men's and women's health over their lifetimes.