Health Ministry to focus on women for International Women's Day

In commemoration of International Women’s Day (IWD) on March 8, the Health Ministry will hold a series of events focusing on women’s health, beginning on March 4 and ending with a National Screening Weekend on March 9 and March 10.

Directorate of Women’s Health director Dr Adesh Sirjusingh said this is the second year the ministry will celebrate health activities specific to women at this time, and it will become an annual event.

Speaking to Newsday by phone on Wednesday, Sirjusingh said the ministry would combine two IWD themes.

“The IWD organisation’s theme is Inspire Inclusion, and the UN Women’s theme is Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress. We’ve merged them together to see what activities can do.”

Sirjusingh said the ministry uses a "whole life" approach to looking at disease processes in women.

“We break it up into before you conceive – so a woman who needs to look after their health and health issues before pregnancy – then pregnancy itself, newborn, infant, childhood, adolescence, their reproductive years, and then menopause, so each stage will have issues we could focus on.”

He emphasised that the ministry would co-ordinate the events but the regional health authorities (RHAs) would administer and deliver the health care.

Sirjusingh said the events would centre on common women’s health issues such as cervical cancer, breast cancer and breastfeeding as well as a new focus on menopause and perimenopause.

“We at the ministry recognise this was an underserved area in the past. We never highlighted this until last year for International Menopause Day in October, we held a symposium in September and a series of activities around menopause. We’re going to continue menopause, which merges into several diseases, including cancers, non-communicable diseases, and so on, as a continuing and sustainable focus in the Health Ministry.”

He said the ministry will also relaunch the new HPV vaccination guidelines.

“The vaccine is critical in preventing cervical cancer. It can prevent more than 90 per cent of cervical cancers if you administer it to children between the ages of nine-14 years of age. We are highlighting this.”

He said there would be activities at all health centres in the RHA, including Pap smears, breast cancer screenings, and NCD screenings such as blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol. He said the colposcopy centre at the North Central RHA will be doing a Pap smear initiative, so there will be a day of events there.

On February 10, there will be mass testing sites at NAPA, the Sangre Grande Enhanced Health Centre, Mayaro, San Fernando Teaching Hospital and the new Point Fortin Hospital.

NCD unit director Dr Maria Clapperton said the activities during the IWD event would fit into the ministry’s life-course approach to address the issue of NCDs.

“For example, encouraging women to breastfeed is integral to ensure not only the bond between mother and child, but to ensure adequate nutrition is provided from an early age to ensure and support healthy nutrition and NCD risk-factor reduction, especially as it relates to diabetes development later in life.”

She said screening for cervical cancer and breast-cancer examinations were critical for women’s health, and this was an opportune time to promote early screening and prevention.

“There will be opportunities for people to test their blood pressure and blood sugar and know their numbers. Through the TTMoves programme, we are focusing on movement for lifestyle change and NCDs, we encourage people to increase their intake of fruit and vegetables, increase your daily intake of water, increase your physical activity levels and know your numbers.”

Sirjusingh said the public could find more information on the initiative on the ministry’s website and its social media pages, as well as those of the individual RHAs.