SASKATOON (Staff) – A group of women in Saskatoon has cleared the first hurdle on the road to setting up a centre to study rural women’s health.
Psychologist Nikki Gerrard said the group heard from Health Canada in early January that its proposal is one of 12 in the running. Ottawa will pick three to five of the proposals to establish centres for women’s health.
Each winning idea will get up to $500,000 a year for the next six years. There are also two proposals from Alberta and one from Manitoba, but Gerrard said the Saskatchewan centre would be unique in serving rural and farm women’s concerns.
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The next step is a quick round of meetings with farm women throughout the province to see what they would expect from such a centre. The final proposals must go to Health Canada by the end of February.
Gerrard said the centre’s focus would be on research, information sharing and policy implementation. There would be three co-ordinators with one based at the University of Saskatchewan, one based in a rural area and one in the aboriginal community.
Effect of health cuts
Susan White is co-ordinator for another proposal that covers four universities in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Their centre idea would have five themes that include gender-specific health care, the effect of health cuts on women’s health and the amount of consumer control over the health system.
White said the universities of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Regina and Saskatchewan will be holding meetings in the next couple of weeks with prairie people to further develop the proposal.
