The opposition slaughters Vestre’s investment in women’s health

Health Minister Jan Christian Vestre (Ap) apparently signs off on the vast majority of the 75 proposals the Women’s Health Committee made when it submitted its report last year. They are either being followed up, are to be investigated or are included in already initiated measures, writes Jan Christian Vestre according to the report “Government’s women’s health strategy – the importance of gender for health” which was published on Thursday morning.

Throughout the report, it is stated that knowledge and competence on women’s health must be improved in the health and care service, as well as the other public support apparatus, and that this knowledge is used as a basis for the organization of the service offerings.

– When it is well documented that there is still a lack of knowledge about women’s health and the importance of gender for health, it requires recognition, action and change, writes the minister in the foreword to the report.

He points out that much of the medical research and treatment has traditionally been adapted to men, even though the female and male bodies are biologically different. A woman’s heart can be up to 30 per cent smaller than a man’s heart, and high blood pressure develops differently in women and men and has different implications for the risk of organ damage and heart disease.

– Women can have different symptoms of stroke than men. There are many such examples. That is why it is so important to have a separate women’s health strategy, writes the Minister of Health.

The opposition little impressed

– Unfortunately, I only hear far too much talk and not much concrete from the minister. There is a lot of “should” and “can”, and few concrete measures in the strategy, says health policy spokesperson Bård Hoksrud in the Progress Party to NTB.

The two leading opposition parties on the bourgeois side were not slow in sabering down the 56-page report. It only comes three years after the government’s own expert committee – the Women’s Health Committee – was set up.

– It is good that after three years we are finally getting a women’s health strategy, but unfortunately there is not much new here. The Minister of Health is trying to re-sell old proposals as new. Norwegian women deserve better, says Høyre’s Sandra Bruflot.

– We are tired of fancy words that everyone can agree on, now we need women’s health to be a priority, she says.

Among other things, Hoksrud points out that it is “extremely important that we strengthen the treatment capacity for women-related diseases”, so that women receive fast and good treatment regardless of where in the country they live. Bruflot calls for “something to be said about funding, because women’s health gets too little of the pot and is not given a high enough priority today”.

Costs 1 billion

The government’s women’s health strategy will ensure more knowledge about and better investigation, treatment and follow-up of women’s health in preventive work and in the health and care service.

– Let me state emphatically – women are entitled to the same good and adapted treatment as men. It is therefore a matter of course that medical research, treatment and follow-up must take into account the importance of gender, writes Vestre in the foreword.

The Women’s Health Committee, which was chaired by Christine Meyer, served up a list of 75 measures when it submitted its report in March last year. Overall, the measures will cost around NOK 1 billion, Meyer estimated. The investment is partly based on reprioritisation, partly on fresh funds.

Women’s health and typical women’s diseases have a low status, is the clear opinion of the committee. Prioritizing women’s health will give women better health care, but also save society large expenses, argued Meyer.

– Compared to the costs of what typical women’s ailments cost society, NOK 1 billion is relatively small, she told NTB.

A number of measures

Vestre is advocating for a number of concrete measures, sorted under three main objectives – better competence in women’s health, equal health and care services and better knowledge through, among other things, research:

* Give healthcare personnel better knowledge of common health challenges among women before, during and after reproductive age

* Ensure better knowledge about menopause and consider measures that provide better access to hormone treatment

* Laying the basis for the implementation of the Stay safe at home reform that older women may have needs that differ from the needs of older men

* Facilitating that the gender and women’s perspective is taken care of in the health and care services

* Follow up and assess activity and quality in services aimed at women and women’s health

* Continue the prioritization of women’s health and the safeguarding of the gender perspective in the Research Council

* Incorporating the gender perspective when revising and developing new national recommendations, advice, package processes and patient processes