The voices of women who live in rural and remote parts of Canada are reflected in a study of health policy re-leased June 9.
Their universal complaint is that women are invisible and their health concerns disregarded by those in authority.
There were many suggestions for change from the 200 women who participated in 28 focus groups across Canada and attended a national meeting in Saskatoon in March 2003.
Their ideas form the backbone of the study recommendations, which include supporting mobile services, embracing midwives and nurse practitioners, and linking health and poverty.
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“This is not just a whine but a thoughtful response,” said Margaret Haworth-Brockman, one of the report’s authors and executive director of the Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence in Winnipeg.
She said the report deliberately analyzed the information for gender and location concerns and recommended that health-care decision makers do the same in future.
She said it is important that women be heard.
“We are talking about more than 50 percent of the population and 80 percent of the health system’s workers,” she said.
The report said that one in five Canadian women lives in a rural area.
Recommendations for action will be spread to community organizations, academics and government officials.
Haworth-Brockman said the centre is developing a workshop kit so local activists can start discussions in their communities about changing the system so it works better for women and their families.
The recommendations include:
- Reducing poverty.
- Making health information more accessible through telephone information lines, local libraries, interactive websites and community health centres.
- Co-ordinating the supply of doctors, dentists, optometrists, pharmacists and other health workers to prevent “destructive bidding wars between desperate communities.” More specialists and therapists should travel to the people rather than the other way around.
- Encouraging health professionals to work in a team and locate in rural regions. More women doctors.
- Using tax dollars to help fund community organizations that allow women to be part of the system dispensing economic, political and social services.
- Having more locally based services for victims of domestic violence and those with chronic mental health problems.
One participant at the Vermilion, Alta., group noted the cost paid by rural families because of distance from care.
“I don’t think people in the city have any comprehension that it means you’re actually leaving your place of work…. You’re taking a whole day. You’re spending overnight.
“When my youngest was flown to Edmonton when she was born, I mean I literally had to pack up suitcases and move to Edmonton for two weeks.”
