Women’s Health

At the General Meeting in Suriname many of us spoke about the need to take some action about women’s health in the region. In fact, many of you will recall our impromptu health “workshop” pulled together by staff member, Jacquie Burgess, where we shared many issues about our own health and the health of our parents for whom many of us were becoming caregivers. It is in the context of those concerns that we propose to work towards a regional health project. But we want to emphasise the consultative nature of this project and to ensure that it responds to felt needs in our several countries. To this end the Secretariat is pulling together a concept paper which will form the basis of discussion over the next few weeks. On the basis of comments and concerns from membership on this paper we can decide at the next Regional Committee Meeting about how we can go forward with getting a proposal written for funding and with actions based on in kind support.

There is no doubt that when our countries were undergoing structural adjustment programmes in the past three decades that our health systems and hence levels of health were compromised. We are now reaping the whirlwind of those draconian decisions to cut health costs as the region has been placed among the top countries impacted by serious diseases. Our Governments have begun to recognize what is needed now in this area by, for example, initiating a pan-Caribbean HIV/AIDS response programme under the purview of Dr George Alleyne as UN Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS. Women of the Caribbean need to be in on the decisions about how those resources will be used, and to ensure that strengthening community responses and capacity building to support good health is a priority of that initiative.

Those nurses long ago saw the need to prioritise health and address it from a regional perspective as the only sensible strategy of small countries seeking to develop. At this juncture when the Caribbean is faced with several dire health challenges and resources remain undeveloped and unequally distributed, we return both to making a priority of health and seeking ways to mobilize trans-Caribbean resources in its defence.