‘F.P.A. should be supported’

Press, 16 September 1982, Page 27

‘F.P.A. should be supported’

. Women’s support for community health centres such as Family Planning should be acknowledged by the Medical Association, says The Health Alternatives for Women collective in Christchurch. The collective was responding to a statement by the Medical Association's council in “The Press" recently. which called for a reduction in Government funding to the Family Planning Association.

Doctors were worried that groups such as the F.P.A. were contributing to the fragmentation of primary health care, said the council. Ms Christine Bird, a spokeswoman for T.H.A.W., said that the F.P.A. and premenstrual tension clinics in Christchurch should be supported by the Medical

Association, not criticised. “You would expect that the Medical Association would have the needs of the health care of women as a priority,” she said.

“But it seems it is more worried about fragmentation rather than what is in the best interests of women,” she said. “Surely the council realises that women prefer to see women health workers, especially when these women have a special knowledge of such subjects as premenstrual tension, menopause, contraception, and pregnancy. “But through fear of Government health-funding cuts, the medical industry is going back to the ivory-tower approach where it holds tight rein over who is to have information on primary health care.” said Ms Bird.