Dr Anbarasu Mohanraj's Blog - Women's Health

WOMEN’S HEALTH
Today is International Women’s day. Leaving apart the gaga of celebrating the Women’s day with chocolates and roses, if we dissect into the reality behind Women’s health in India, it’s quite dismal.

It is a hard truth that there is a gender prejudice in the overall health in our country and a deep gender prejudice in the health care access too. India ranks among the bottom in women’s health care. Women spend less on health, fare worse in disease outcomes and nutritional surveys.
Even in developed states like the South, the number of women coming up for diagnosis at an early stage of malignancies, diabetes mellitus and heart disease is quite low.
A typical example would be the house-wives who were born in the 1950s to 1970s. They always had the least nutritious food which is carb rich lacking all forms of veggies and meat. They prioritise the nutritious part of the diet to the husband who used to be the sole bread winner and the rest to the kids.
The end result has been a startling incidence of diabetes and other health issues in our women.
The women we see in our routine practise usually have a very high HbA1c and come at late stages of heart disease. Unlike the men, they rarely undergo routine health check ups.
Surprisingly the mortality rate due to heart disease is higher than breast cancer and all other cancers combined together. Heart diseases contribute to more than 20% of death in women. There is a 300% rise in incidence of heart diseases in women in the last two decades.
Gone are the days when we considered that women do not get heart diseases. We see women in their mid thirties with heart attacks. Women in general, fare poorly when they get heart attacks.
We are a peculiar society. We revere our Goddesses, but indulge in female infanticide. We worship our rivers, but pollute them the most.

On this occasion of Women’s day, Let’s take a pledge in making a change in our Women’s Health.
Let’s prioritise WOMEN’S HEALTH

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