Date: 21/08/2006
Source: Department of Health
Title: Tshabalala-Msimang: Women's Health Summit in Women's Month


  Speech by the Minister of Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, Women's Health Summit Rustenburg

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