Give attention to women’s health in Ghana – Ms Oppong-Yeboah advocates  

Ms Oppong-Yeboah

ACE broadcaster and women’s health advocate, Josephine Oppong-Yeboah, has urged the government to pay more attention to women’s health in Ghana. She said women’s health remains a global public health concern, as the health and wealth of any society largely depend on the health and wealth of its women.

She observed that due to gender inequali­ties and other social factors, many women in the country are unable to access healthcare, a situation she noted, has led many to their early graves or deteriorated their health.

In an interview with The Spectator, Ms. Oppong-Yeboah, said the health of women was fundamental to the socio-economic development of the country and that “pri­oritising the health of women will to a large extent help better the lifespan of the gener­al population.

” She recalled that women’s health was emphasised at the fourth World Confer­ence on Women held in Beijing in 1995, and added that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) also gave attention to women’s health. Ms. Oppong-Yeboah said gender inequality in accessing care had further been height­ened by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pan­demic, which according to her had worsened the existing inequalities.

She also said women and girls have been exposed to sexual and gender-based violence while their health had generally been associ­ated with reproductive health.

She was of the view that many available services and delivery methods do not ade­quately support women’s access to health care, explaining that many health interven­tions do not take into account the realities of women’s and girls’ mobility, time, and material resources.      

By Benedicta Gyimaah Folley