There is currently intense debate surrounding healthcare reform. “It is important to focus on those people who are often overlooked in such discussions: disadvantaged groups such as those living in poverty, people with disabilities and women, and, last but not least, people affected by racism within the healthcare system,” said Ombudsman Bernhard Achitz, who chaired the NGO forum on 27 May at the premises of the Federation of Social Insurance Institutions: “People who belong to several of these groups are particularly affected, as discrimination does not occur in isolation.”
Every year, the Ombudsman’s Office organises an NGO Forum on a specific topic, giving civil society the opportunity to engage with federal and state authorities, representatives of the social insurance system and, of course, politicians. In recent years, topics have included the still long-overdue enshrinement of fundamental social rights in the Constitution, or children’s rights. The Ombudsman’s Office has summarised and published the results in conference proceedings: https://volksanwaltschaft.gv.at/berichte/ngo-forum-tagungsbaende/
Hotter (F.E.M. Women’s Health Centres): Personalised medicine instead of a one-size-fits-all approach!
Discrimination against women in the health sector has several aspects, reported Katharina Hotter from the F.E.M. Institute for Women’s and Men’s Health: “On the one hand, it concerns gender-related, biological issues: different hormones, chromosomes, …, which lead to different disease risks and outcomes. And on the other hand, it is also about gender, that is, different family structures,…, all of which influence our health.” Furthermore, there are not just men and women, but multiple genders, “and our healthcare system must take this into account as well. Staff are far too uninformed in this regard,” said Hotter.
However, the focus of women’s health centres is on women’s health concerns: “We need to move towards personalised medicine – not just applying the same treatment to everyone across the board!” Women receive far more psychosomatic diagnoses; this is partly because illnesses affecting women have been less researched. Women make up 51 per cent of the world’s population, yet menstrual health is far too rarely discussed. For many conditions, women face different risks and disease progression compared to men, yet research and training often focus on men.
Medicines are tested on women far less frequently; this starts with animal testing, where only male test animals are used. Hotter: “But medicines often have different effects depending on gender. Aspirin protects men from heart attacks – but not women.” Dosage recommendations are also often tailored only to men, which can quickly lead to overdoses in women.
Unfortunately, women repeatedly experience medical gaslighting: “This means that their symptoms are not taken seriously, whereas men are more likely to be believed when they report pain,” says Hotter: “There needs to be much greater awareness in the training of all healthcare professions.”
