The Woman’s Academy has teamed up with the Women’s Clinic (Groupe Chirec) to bring you the Woman’s Health Academy, — a series of workshops dedicated to Woman’s health issues.
Did you know that cardiovascular disease accounts for 80% of deaths in Eastern Europe or that breast cancer is the main cause of cancer mortality among women in the European Union today? These are the findings of the European Women’s Lobby (EWL) recent position paper, which highlights the state of Women’s health throughout the EU. The same paper urged member states to acknowledge the biological differences between the genders and the specific healthcare needs of women and integrate them into national and European healthcare policy.
So what are these differences?
Biomedical research seems to imply that women and men are physiologically identical with the exception of their sexual and reproductive health, and ignores the social and gender factors that can have an impact on women’s health.
Women spend more time looking after others, often forgetting to take charge of their own healthcare. But if they don’t who will? A study by the Karolinksa Institutet, Sweden highlights that personal health is last on the list of priorities for women after the well-being of their children, their work, their partners and their home.
The increased participation of women in the workforce and the lifestyles today’s women lead also expose them to illnesses principally linked to stress. In this week’s article on “La Santé des femmes actives : un sujet taboo”, Fatma Bouvet de La Maisonneuve, Founder of Santé Femmes Actives (Health of Working Women) says that working women juggling family and work responsibilities suffer from stress, anxiety, depression and in some cases burn out. As a result of this substance abuse (e.g. alcohol, cocaine) are on the up. She warns that we cannot continue to ignore the social factors that contribute to this rise.
How can we change the situation?
The EWL sets out a number of recommendations at the national and European levels. Among these recommendations are: integrating women’s perspectives and needs within health policies, including: medical research, data collection, medical testing, training of the care and medical professionals at all levels and in all sectors. They want to see more women in health policy development, programme planning and service delivery, and in medical research, including at the highest levels. Access to healthcare services to all women independent of their status and more focus on preventing women-specific diseases.
Perhaps women’s health will be taken more seriously when we have more women among the higher ranks in the medical profession. We talked to Marleen Temmerman, the first female professor in gynaecology in Benelux, about her career and how we can encourage and support younger women wanting to enter the medical profession.
Enter the Women’s Health Academy…
It is this need to raise awareness on the specific healthcare needs of women that prompted The Women’s Academy and The Women’s Clinic (Groupe Chirec) to join forces to present a series of workshops on health-related issues including: managing the ageing process, weight control, stress prevention and subjects often considered “taboo” such as the perineum .
Join us for the first workshop…
www.womansacademy.be
