Women's Health Summit Rustenburg
21 August 2006
Programme director, distinguished guests, ladies and gentleman, I feel
privileged to address you on this special day to commemorate and celebrate the
formidable spirit and achievements of women of our country.
This year marks the twelfth year of celebrating Women's Month/Day and the
commemoration of 50 years of the historic women's march to the union buildings
by 20 000 women from all over the country. We are here today to remind
ourselves of the heroines of our struggle who fought fiercely for the
liberation and recognition of women's human rights. Again, this year, the 9th
of August 2006, saw a multitude of women marching from the Strijdom Square to
the Union Buildings. This was a symbolic march planned to remember all the
courageous women who undertook an unprecedented march 50 years ago, to do away
with the dompas and all its attendant repressive and de-humanising laws once
and for all.
We are here to recognise women who struggled and continue to struggle for a
better life free of disease and poverty, against all odds. We have organised
this function to celebrate Women's Day as the national and provincial
departments of health. Firstly, we would like to use this occasion to honour
you, the many women (and men) who keep this organisation functioning. Your
contribution is appreciated.
I am here today, to acknowledge and thank each and every one of you for the
daily contribution you make, as individuals, and as a collective group, that
forms the health sector that delivers health and well-being and safeguards the
dignity of all our people, through healthcare. Your support to the system and
dedication and effort to perform your duties, for which you were appointed, as
best as you can, is critically important in keeping our healthcare chain strong
and functioning. You do not work only to strengthen the healthcare chain of
which you and I are part, but also the chain that supports our country. Women
of this country form the steel from which this chain is made. Women, men and
children struggled and fought for so long for this country, some of whom lost
their lives and loved ones.
I therefore also stand before you this morning as a fellow human being, a
woman, a mother and a grandmother, but very importantly, also as a daughter of
the soil brought up in a value system that has carried many generations of
women through the most difficult of times. I believe it is necessary to
acknowledge our mothers who pioneered and infused in us the spirit of
achievement against all odds.
The Department of Health has a strong conviction that women have the right
to enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health,
hence the careful and considerate selection of health service delivery options.
The enjoyment of this right is vital to their life and well-being and their
ability to participate in all areas of public and private life.
A major barrier for women to the achievement of the highest attainable
standard of health is inequality, both between women and men and among women in
different geographical regions, social classes and indigenous and ethnic
groups. Women are affected by many of the same health conditions as men, but
women experience them differently.
The prevalence among women of poverty and economic dependence, their
experience of violence, negative attitudes towards women and girls and other
forms of discrimination, the limited power many women have over their sexual
and reproductive lives, and lack of influence in decision-making are social
realities which have an adverse effect on their health.
It is therefore of vital importance that women get involved and take the
lead in ensuring their participation in planning and decision-making processes
that will contribute towards improving accessibility and provision of adequate
healthcare services. They are best placed to guide the government to design and
implement gender sensitive health programmes that address the needs of women
throughout their lives and take into account their multiple roles and
responsibilities. The demands on their time, the special needs of rural women
and women with disabilities and the diversity of women's needs arising from age
and socio-economic and cultural differences.
Secondly, as the programme indicates, we have organised this function so
that we are able to focus attention on consolidating and strengthening
reproductive health programmes throughout the country during the National
Women's month. The theme for this years' Reproductive Health campaign is: "Save
the Nation: Strengthen Reproductive Health."
This summit should enable us to celebrate achieved milestones, reflect on
current efforts and challenges concerning legislation, policies and programmes
developed and established thus far. In addition, we want to intensify current
efforts, through interrogating the role healthcare providers play in
implementing reproductive health programmes throughout the country. This
includes making sure that health workers themselves, the majority of which are
women, are empowered through quality healthcare.
This will be done by way of motivational talk from various speakers and
pampering you with services such as clinical testing for sugar, and body
massaging etc, to make sure you feel good and remain healthy mentally,
physically and spiritually.
However, at this point, I would like to use this opportunity to briefly draw
your attention to what the department is doing to improve the health status of
all women. I hope that after this session you will become ambassadors of the
department and explain to your clients at service level and communities about
our programmes and policy interventions to improve the lives of people.
This year's August celebrations are running under the theme: "Age of hope:
through struggle to freedom". This theme, although encouraging, clearly
indicates that there are still many battles to be won before we can achieve the
full emancipation of women and gender equality in all spheres of our lives.
The many battles to be fought include the persisting unemployment, poverty,
diseases and poor health, deliberate and calculated violence against women and
children, and the difficult circumstances of vulnerable groups such as the
women with disabilities and orphans to mention but a few.
Despite these challenges, our government can certainly take pride in the
tremendous efforts that have been made to improve the status of women.
Government has passed several pieces of legislation to support a wide range of
initiatives in the quest for gender equality and equity.
We continue to provide free primary healthcare to all and free healthcare to
pregnant women, and children less than six years of age. The provision of these
services is now a legal requirement enshrined in the National Health Act. The
issue of fees for services is a gender issue as many women still live in
conditions of poverty and are therefore, unable to pay for basic health
services.
The Department of Health has made efforts to ensure that health services
respond to the needs of women, including making reproductive health services
available and accessible to all women in the country. The proportion of births
that were attended to by either a nurse or doctor has increased from 84 percent
in 1998 to 92 percent in 2003. The main factors impacting on maternal deaths as
well as infant and child mortality are being addressed.
We are intensifying the implementation of the Expanded Programme on
Immunisation, Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses and School Health
Services to improve the health of our children. More than 77 percent of our
health facilities were providing services to reduce the risk of mother-to-child
transmission of HIV by the end of last year and these services are being
expanded to other facilities.
We have made strides in extending family planning and other services that
empower women. The effects of contraceptives on unwanted pregnancy cannot be
underestimated. Hence the department has developed contraceptive service
delivery guidelines.
The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act enables women to obtain
termination of pregnancy services at public health facilities. While this is a
reproductive health concern, it is also a gender issue. Women are sometimes not
in a position to prevent unwanted pregnancies, because of inequality in sexual
relationships. We continue to empower women to prevent the spread of
communicable diseases such as HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. We
are encouraging women to lead healthy lifestyles and undergo health screening
to reduce the risk of acquiring non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and
hypertension. Efforts are also being made to protect women from violence and
comprehensive services for care of survivors of sexual violence are being
expanded.
The Department of Health is also providing services for screening of breast
and cervical cancer which affects many women. We should ensure that we use
these services to prevent serious health damage and deaths caused by these
diseases.
More than 3, 9 million households receive free basic water and free basic
electricity reaches 2, 9 million households. These are programmes that are
making a real difference to the daily lives of women whose health would
otherwise have been compromised because of no access to these basic
services.
We have brought freedom to millions of women whose participation in the
socio-economic activities have been limited by the daily tussles of fetching
unsafe water from far away streams and collecting wood from distant forests.
The Gender Policy document is a sign of departmental commitment to women's
health and promotion of norms and practices that eliminate discrimination
against women and encourage both women and men to take responsibility for their
sexual and reproductive behaviour, and ensure full respect for the integrity of
the person. It reaffirms women's right to the enjoyment of the highest
attainable standards of physical and mental health.
This policy guideline is used to mainstream a gender perspective through
assessing the implications for women and men of any planned health action,
policies and programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It actually boosts the
existing strategies for making women's as well as men's concerns and
experiences as an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring
and evaluation of policies and programmes within the health context so that
women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated.
All these achievements are part of government's efforts to alleviate poverty
and improve the life and health status of women and the poor in general.
However, as the Minister of Health and a woman, I am deeply concerned about the
pace of substantive empowerment of grassroots women, particularly at service
delivery level. I'm cognisant of the fact that though we have achieved so much,
there is still a lot of ground to be covered before we can confidently declare
that women in this country are truly free. The empowerment of vulnerable
groups, particularly women, is critical in improving the quality of life of the
general population.
I'm cognisant of the fact that, as we commemorate the 50th Anniversary of
the Women's March and the National Women's Month today, the majority of women
are still denied their basic human rights enshrined in the Constitution.
Their liberty and dignity continues to be compromised as many are subjected
to violence, poverty, and disease. HIV and AIDS and violence against women and
children are perhaps the most shameful and recognised forms of the violation of
human rights. Violence against women and children remains a major problem in
many countries despite the fact that world leaders, including our government,
committed themselves to the principle of inviolability of human rights through
adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948.
Therefore, our institutions should be the ones that, in their formal
procedures or in their informal practices, include women and enable them to
gain opportunities for personal development and upward mobility. Breaking the
silence and raising the voice of women is a challenge that faces women in South
Africa, and in Africa as a whole. We all need to work together to bring the
voices of women out in the open to be heard. We should be able to speak out
against abuse, against gender discrimination and other social challenges that
women encounter.
We should work together to increase the pace of substantive empowerment of
women, particularly at service delivery level. There is still a lot of ground
to be covered before we can confidently declare that we have achieved gender
equality in our country.
We have it in our power to improve the lives of all women of South Africa.
Let us join hands in a people's contract to fight poverty and create a better
life for all.
Wathint' abafazi, wathint' imbokodo uzokufa nya!
Thank you
Issued by: Department of Health
21 August 2006
