Derry and Strabane Council to pursue women’s health strategy

Derry and Strabane Council will put pressure on the Department of Health to create a health strategy that deals with the specific needs of women.

The motion was brought by Councillor Caroline Devine at the reconvened Full Council meeting, Thursday 23 November.

The Sinn Féin councillor said the North is lagging behind the South and Britain on women’s health.

“The North is the only area across these islands that doesn't have a woman's health strategy,” she said.

“The groundwork needs to commence now on developing a strategy so that our unique health needs and challenges are recognized and health outcomes for women and girls living here are improved.

“We need a strategy in place to reduce avoidable health inequalities for women across the course of their lives. Ensuring that age, ethnicity, sexuality, income inequality or where they live does not impact their ability to easily access appropriate and timely services and treatments.

She said not enough focus is put on women-specific health and well-being issues including menstrual health, contraception, fertility, pregnancy, postpartum support, pregnancy loss, menopause, and acts of violence against women and girls.

“Many health conditions affect women disproportionately, things like autoimmune conditions, depression, IBS, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's disease, yet women remain underrepresented in medical research and clinical trials, resulting in poorer outcomes.

“Researchers should be mandated to consider females in research because using men as a default leads to less effective treatments for women.

A 'coordinated and strategic approach' that normalises 'conversation around things like periods fertility and menopause' is needed according to cllr Devine.

“Women need to be listened to by their health care practitioners and there needs to be better education and training for healthcare professionals on women-specific health conditions and better access to relevant health care information and services across every stage of a woman's life.

“Employers also need to have a greater understanding of how women's health affects her experiences in the workplace so that they can remain productive and be supported in their working life.”

She proposed that Council writes to the Permanent Secretary in the Department of Health, highlighting its concern that there is a lack of strategic direction regarding women’s health services and requesting groundwork commences immediately on the development of a Women’s Health Strategy.

Councillor Lilian Barr said the issue stems from underrepresentation of women in positions of power.

“I think we can all agree that women's issues and particularly health issues have not been prioritised. We have not had an opportunity to have a consistent, effective and cohesive approach which the government should have implemented to ensure that grassroot voices have been heard,” the SDLP councillor said.

“You rightly articulated the lack of research here and the lack of data that can be used. This is one of the issues that we face, not having women in positions of power.

“I just want to highlight that my colleague Sinead McLaughlin recently carried out a survey of women earlier this year and covered more than 500 responses and 90% of the women felt that there is inadequate service provision available for the biggest healthcare issue affecting women.”

Alderman Derek Hussey said he supports the motion and said there may be a need for positive discrimination to address the issue.

“When you look at section five of the Northern Ireland act which requires our council to give due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity and one of the sections there is between men and women. When you look at the disparity which has been outlined, I would go further to say is there a need for some sort of positive discrimination to restore a proper reflective balance within our health strategy,” the UUP alderman said.

Two versions of the motion were submitted, one in English and one as Gaeilge. Ald Hussey said he prefers the Irish language version of the motion.

“I did note and I had mentioned it to Councillor Devine. I’m more or less inclined to say yes to the Gaeilge version as opposed to the English translation of it,” the UUP alderman said.

“‘Tuaisceart Éireann’ literally translates as Northern Ireland and I can accept that. Whereas in the English it's referred to the north of Ireland, which is ‘Tuaisceart na hÉireann’, forgive my pronunciation, but I thought I would reflect on that, thank you.”

Alderman Chelsea Cooke said she wants to ensure any strategy is genuinely put into practice.

“As a chairperson for a local woman’s group, women's health issues are something that is talked about frequently.

“Statistics show that women tend to live longer than men but spend more of their life in poor health and that four out of five women have at times felt that healthcare professionals are not listening to them,” the DUP alderman said.

“Starting the groundwork on a woman's health strategy is vitally important, but we need to make sure that when it is fully implemented it goes somewhere. We don't want to strategise if it's going to be sitting on a shelf somewhere.

“These issues are important to all women and girls and through this process it is extremely important that their voices are heard and used to create this strategy. Thorough consultation on this is essential to ensure all the issues are taken into consideration.”

The motion passed unanimously.