FEB.

23, 2012 DATE

NR # 2688B
REF. NO.

Lawmaker urges colleagues to take womens health as a serious national concern

A lady lawmaker today urged her colleagues to take womens health seriously as a national concern. In a privilege speech, Rep. Rosenda M. Ocampo (6th District, Manila) urged the members of the 15th Congress to provide crucial health services for women and firmly support womens reproductive rights. Ocampo said poor women encounter common health problems in their barangays such as the too many, too early and too-closely-spaced pregnancy, violence against women in its many forms and intensity and poor access to basic health services. Ocampo cited a 2008 National Demographic Health Survey which showed that women from the poorest households tend to have an average of over five children compared to women in the wealthiest quintile who have, on average, less than two. Poor women also tended to start giving birth at an earlier age and had shorter birth intervals between children compared to the rich. This tendency to have more children, earlier and close together has dire implications for both the women and their children. Even for women survivors of lifethreatening maternal complications such as severe bleeding and hypertension cannot meet their hospitalization. Moreover, a woman who is sick is unable to contribute to the family earnings to tend to her familys needs, Ocampo said. Ocampo said the 2008 NDHS also showed that by the age of 15, one in five women experience many forms of violence physical, sexual or emotional. Womens experiences of violence tend to vary with their education and wealth quintile level. Women who have reached at least high school or earned a college education are less likely to experience physical violence; while women belonging to the poor quintiles are more likely to experience it, Ocampo said. While pregnancy is expected to provide some degree of protection to women, on average, four in one hundred Filipinas actually experienced violence during pregnancy, an experience that tended to be higher among adolescent and poor women, Ocampo said. Likewise, Ocampo said womens access to basic health care services can determine how long they live, their quality of life and how actively they can contribute to the wellbeing of their families and children.

FEB. 23, 2012 DATE

NR # 2688B
REF. NO.

Ocampo said maternal care, which many women of reproductive age need, is an important measure of health access. The 2008 NDHS showed that while access to maternal care on the average is fair to good, this is not so for the greater number of women in our country, she said. Ocampo said poor women who seek prenatal care, the care of pregnant women to detect and manage early pregnancy complications, is lower than the rich and the care they receive is less in amount, in terms of iron supplements to prevent anemia as well as blood and urine exams, which identify medical conditions that could affect the pregnancy. Furthermore, Ocampo said despite the dangers associated with pregnancy complications, 87% of the poorest women deliver at home, mainly assisted by a hilot who is not capable of handling a birthing emergency. This is in stark contrast to advantaged women who give birth mainly in a health facility or hospital, assisted by a doctor. Marginalized women are also unable to avail of the standard life-saving operation for an obstructed delivery (when delivery of the baby requires an operation called Cesarean section). This means that poor women die because they do not have the means and cannot afford the necessary Cesarean operation, Ocampo emphasized. Ocampo said these problems included lack of money, lack of providers and drugs in a facility, distance to the facility and transport problems. In other studies, women have identified some health providers as insensitive to their impoverished condition and lack of knowledge. Because of the multiple roles that women, including poor women play in society mothers, wives, workers, teachers, community organizers, etc- womens well-being and empowerment are key, not just to their own development but to the development of societies. Women-headed households have been shown to have less number of children and produce children who are better-nourished, educated and healthy, Ocampo said. (30)
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