Women have come a long way. They have battled for their rights and proved their mettle, be it in science, politics, sports, business, literature or art. Alas, their health, an important aspect, continues to be overlooked and neglected. Gender-based health disparities continue to exist and hamper women’s strides to progress. Therefore, recognising the urgent need for renewed commitment towards women’s health, Express Healthcare and Bayer Zydus Pharma came together to bring key stakeholders on a common platform to educate and inform about the advances in this sphere. At an event held at the St Regis, Mumbai on February 20, eminent members of the medical fraternity, media professionals and representatives of pharma major Bayer Zydus Pharma shared a stage to discuss and debate on the best strategies to inform and empower women to make the right health decisions.
Welcoming the guests and dignitaries, Express Healthcare editor Viveka Roychowdhury set the context for further discussions and highlighted how vital it is to address inequities in women’s health. She urged the stakeholders to join hands to enable more funding, research and creation of effective policies and programmes to deal with women’s unique health needs. Stressing on the essentiality of making women’s health a major priority to ensure progress of the nation and the society, she also drew attention to the role of the media as a watchdog to help ensure higher visibility and understanding of this issue.
Bayer Zydus Pharma MD Manoj Saxena took the stage to speak on Bayer’s work and offerings in women’s health. He elaborated on the company’s contributions towards innovative contraception and gynaecological therapies. He assured that Bayer has pledged its allegiance towards the cause of improving women’s health, worldwide and in India. He also said that it is investing significantly on research and product development to meet heretofore unmet needs in this sphere. Renowned Marathi film and theatre actress Spruha Joshi was the chief guest at the event. She gave a perspective on the health needs of today’s women. She pointed out that despite being the custodians of their family’s health, women often tend to overlook their own wellbeing, which has severe and significant adverse effects later.
Joshi also urged parents to empower their girl children with the right knowledge to help them make the right choices for their health and wellbeing throughout their life. She was also very emphatic that mass media can play a very crucial part in generating awareness and sensitising the society towards women’s health and hygiene needs. Yet, in her opinion, mass media hasn’t been optimally utilised to achieve this objective. To prove her point, she highlighted that it has taken the Indian film fraternity over 100 years of existence to make a movie like Padman, the recently released Askhay Kumar starrer which addresses menstruation and issues related to it.
A very interesting panel discussion followed Joshi’s insightful session. An eminent panel comprising Dr Rishma Pai, consultant gynaecologist at Lilavati Hospital, Jaslok Hospital, and Every Woman Clinic; Dr Nandita Palshetkar, infertility specialist associated with Lilavati Hospital and Fortis Group of Hospitals, Delhi; actress Spruha Joshi; Shubhalaxmi Patwardhan, director, Niramaya Health Foundation and Manoj Saxena, managing director, Bayer Zydus Pharma. The moderator, Express Healthcare Editor Viveka Roychowdhury, steered the discussion through various pertinent aspects of women’s health.
The panelists touched upon women’s health problems ranging across all age groups across different strata of the society. Dr Pai spoke on how she encounters various young girls with health problems, often caused and aggravated due to ignorance about their bodily processes and sexual health. She lamented that despite advancements in various areas, the country continues to be mired in outdated traditions, beliefs and practices, be it about menstruation, pregnancy or contraception.
Dr Palshetkar threw light on the various complexities in women’s health issues arising in these rapidly changing times. She gave valuable insights on the different causes of infertility among women such as stressful lifestyles, diseases like endometriosis, delayed pregnancies due to late marriages etc. She also said that with advancements in healthcare, now women have various ways and means to make their pregnancies safer.
Joshi recounted some harrowing real life experiences of dealing with abysmal sanitary conditions and unhygienic toilets in the course of her career as an actress.
Patwardhan, as a social activist, drew a very realistic picture of the deplorable conditions of women living in the slums and the various health hazards faced by them. She pointed out that the health issues faced by these women have different causes from those faced by women living in better socio-economic conditions. Therefore, the strategies and solutions to deal with them also need to be different.
Saxena, as the only male member of the panel, spoke on how essential it is to sensitise men in the society to the health needs of women. He opined that men too will have to uphold and champion the cause of women’s health as it is directly proportional to a family’s health. Saxena reiterated once again that his company is fully empathetic to women’s health requirements and is in the pursuit of discovering and tailoring solutions to suit individual needs of women across all ages, geographies and socio-economic conditions.
The panelists were also unanimous in their opinion that sex education, timely counselling at educational institutes and workplaces on women’s health, encouraging women to go for regular health check-ups, and instilling and adopting a scientific approach towards these issues are some very crucial measures to bring about significant improvements in this area.