Gender an issue in proper health care

Gender an issue in proper health care

By Zeynita Gibbons

JAKARTA (Antara): Women are generally more susceptible to various diseases than men. The root of the problem is not only biology but also the gender bias that women have experienced since the day they were born, experts say.

The gender bias is blamed for the discrimination that women receive in social, cultural and economic aspects of life based on the perception that boys are more useful.

Traditionally, parents in Indonesia treat their sons better than their daughters. Boys receive better attention for their meals and education than girls do, with this discrimination continuing when the women reach adulthood.

The most evident consequence of the discriminative treatment is in reproductive health once they become adults, when women are left to solve all the problems.

Women's health issues were raised in a seminar on "gender- sensitive health care" at the University of Indonesia in Salemba, Central Jakarta, last week. It was sponsored by the Foundation for the Promotion of Internal Diseases Prevention.

The seminar discussed gender issues in health, the correlation between local culture and women's health, maternal mortality, women's reproductive health and sexually transmitted diseases.

Dr. Pradana Soewondo of the University of Indonesia's School of Health said that women and men needed different nutrients due to their respective social and biological roles.

Pradana said women generally received a lesser portion of meals than boys in communities where women were considered to have lower social status.

In such communities, the father and the boys were served the meat and the women were left the bones.

Discrimination against women also occurs in health services. Medical and nutrition sciences have yet to more specifically address women's health.

Female patients are commonly be treated by male doctors, who are often less understanding about complaints from women who are menstruating or going through menopause.

Reproduction

The discourse on women's reproductive rights began in the 17th century in France and the 18th century in the United States when the awareness of human rights took shape.

It was realized that all human beings, regardless of sex, possessed equal rights to determine their destiny in education, health, economics and politics.

In the 19th century there was growing awareness that women and men held equal rights, including the rights to obtain health service and to reproduction.

Dr. Setyawati Budiningsih from the University of Indonesia's community health department said that the discourse on reproductive health continued to gain ground.

Women's reproductive rights have been an international issue for many years, but it was seriously discussed only in the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo and in the 1995 Women's Conference in Beijing.

Women's reproductive rights also were addressed in the 1968 international conference on human rights in Teheran.

"The spirit that triggered the discourses on reproductive rights is women's right to control their reproductive function," Setyawati said.

The ICPD agreed to define reproductive rights as the right of a woman to freely decide on the number of children she wants to have, the time span of conception, the right to obtain information and the birth method.

The conference also agreed that women held the right to obtain the highest standard of reproductive health service and protection against discrimination and violence.

The maternal mortality rate is an important indicator of women's health status in an area. According to Indonesian official figures, the rate was 390 per 100,000 live births in 1994.

It was between three and six times higher than rates in other Association of Southeast Asian Nations member countries and 50 times higher than those of developed countries.

To lower the maternal death rate, the Indonesian government has made various efforts, such as launching "proactive hospitals" which pay special attention to women's health and offer special services for women and their babies.