Dr Vanes­sa Har­ry

In the in­tri­cate land­scape that is the pub­lic health­care sys­tem, lead­er­ship mat­ters.

The ap­point­ment of Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, an ob­ste­tri­cian-gy­nae­col­o­gist (ObG­yn), as the Min­is­ter of Health can rep­re­sent a pow­er­ful shift, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the pro­mo­tion and pro­tec­tion of women’s health.

With deep clin­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence and first­hand knowl­edge of women’s unique health chal­lenges, a spe­cial­ist ObG­yn in this role brings a per­spec­tive that can dri­ve mean­ing­ful pol­i­cy changes and el­e­vate re­pro­duc­tive and ma­ter­nal health to na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties.

It is well known that women’s re­pro­duc­tive health is cru­cial for build­ing a mod­ern so­ci­ety, as it di­rect­ly im­pacts over­all pop­u­la­tion health, fam­i­ly well-be­ing, and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment. A woman’s abil­i­ty to con­trol her fer­til­i­ty, ex­pe­ri­ence safe preg­nan­cies, and have healthy chil­dren is fun­da­men­tal to a thriv­ing so­ci­ety, and this has been well doc­u­ment­ed by stud­ies and re­ports world­wide.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, gen­der bias in health­care is just as well-doc­u­ment­ed. Women’s symp­toms are of­ten dis­missed, their pain un­der­es­ti­mat­ed, and their re­pro­duc­tive con­cerns un­der-ad­dressed.

A min­is­ter with first-hand knowl­edge of these is­sues can help dis­man­tle these bi­as­es by in­cor­po­rat­ing gen­der eq­ui­ty in­to health strate­gies and en­sur­ing more in­clu­sive clin­i­cal guide­lines.

It is no se­cret that women’s health com­bines many com­plex and of­ten stig­ma­tised top­ics from men­stru­a­tion and fer­til­i­ty to menopause and ma­ter­nal care. Pe­ri­od pover­ty, short­ages of hor­mone re­place­ment ther­a­py and even pub­lic ac­cess to fer­til­i­ty treat­ments are just a few of the is­sues fac­ing women here to­day. Im­proved ma­ter­nal health­care ser­vices, menopause-re­lat­ed mat­ters and par­tic­u­lar­ly na­tion­al screen­ing for cer­vi­cal and breast can­cers are all ar­eas of pri­or­i­ty.

A gy­nae­col­o­gist un­der­stands these com­plex­i­ties in­ti­mate­ly—not just med­ical­ly but al­so so­cial­ly and cul­tur­al­ly. As such, they are more like­ly to cham­pi­on ini­tia­tives that ad­dress these gen­der-based health dis­par­i­ties, and ap­proach them us­ing avail­able sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence. Af­ter all, these spe­cial­ist doc­tors are ful­ly aware of the re­al-life con­se­quences of poor ma­ter­nal health ser­vices, lim­it­ed ac­cess to pre­na­tal care or un­safe abor­tion prac­tices.

At a time when re­pro­duc­tive rights are un­der scruti­ny in many parts of the world, hav­ing an ex­pert of women’s health in a po­si­tion of pow­er sends a clear mes­sage: women’s au­ton­o­my over their bod­ies and their health is a pub­lic health pri­or­i­ty. Such a leader can play a piv­otal role in pro­tect­ing and ex­pand­ing re­pro­duc­tive rights while their med­ical back­ground en­ables them to ad­vo­cate for health poli­cies that are not on­ly ev­i­dence-based but al­so ground­ed in prac­ti­cal­i­ty.

In ad­di­tion, the pres­ence of an ob­ste­tri­cian-gy­nae­col­o­gist in a high-pro­file Gov­ern­ment role can build greater trust be­tween women and the health­care sys­tem. Women may feel more seen, heard, and rep­re­sent­ed when their health con­cerns are di­rect­ly ad­dressed by some­one who un­der­stands them not just po­lit­i­cal­ly, but med­ical­ly. This rep­re­sen­ta­tion can lead to stronger sup­port for new ini­tia­tives, more pub­lic en­gage­ment and ul­ti­mate­ly bet­ter health out­comes.

Fi­nal­ly, the Min­is­ter of Health has the po­ten­tial to trans­form women’s health­care by en­sur­ing that poli­cies re­flect women’s re­al ex­pe­ri­ences, and pro­motes a health­care sys­tem that is in­clu­sive, com­pas­sion­ate, and ground­ed in ex­per­tise. By putting women’s re­pro­duc­tive health at the fore­front of na­tion­al health plan­ning, such lead­er­ship has the abil­i­ty to lead to last­ing im­prove­ments in pub­lic health over­all.