Task force ignoring women’s needs?

Press, 5 October 1987, Page 34

Task force ignoring women’s needs?

The Health Alternatives for Women (T.H.A.W.), a Christchurch women’s health group, ha» called for the Task Force on Hospitals and Related Services to be disbanded. A spokeswoman for the group, Ms Christine Bird, said the task force In its latest discussion paper was Ignoring the needs, of women. "There is nothing in the discussion paper to show that they have considered the effects on women of the changes they are proposing. They seem instead to be more interested in promoting business interests rather than improving community health.” The introduction of competitive costing into the public health system would not imporve the

service for those who needed it most — women, children, and the unemployed, said Ms Bird. “If more people are to be involved in providing services, it should be on the basis of making services more accessible and more sensitive to the needs of those who use them. Cost cutting and efficiency should be byproducts of changing the health system rather than the goal,” said Ms Bird. "Economic competition over services means that private interests with large assets can at first put in a low tender for providing a specific service, taking it away from the public system, then they have control, they put up the costs. By then it is too late for public services to tender again

because they have lost their resources and cannot compete.” Ms Bird said that women were particularly affected by increasing privatisation and cost-cutting because a lot of the follow-up care was dumped on unpaid, female relatives. "Overseas experience also shows that with more privatisation, there is more unnecessary surgery, especially on women.” T.H.A.W. felt the task force was using legitimate concerns about health care, such as the need for community involvement, to mask a private takeover in the interests of big business, said Ms Bird. “This is not in the interests of Improving women’s health.”