- At the first Heroines of Health Awards,
13 women around the world are being honored for their achievements
and dedication to improving global health.
- Documentary premiering in June 2017
will follow three heroines as they bring hope to women and their
communities in Indonesia, Kenya and India.
At this year’s World Health Assembly, GE Healthcare and Women in
Global Health, a movement that strives for greater gender equality
in global health leadership, are joining forces to honor and
celebrate women in global health.
This Smart News Release features multimedia.
View the full release here:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170522005521/en/
The honorees at the Heroines of Health
Awards (Photo: Business Wire)
Today, women make up 75 percent of the global healthcare
workforce in many regions1 and contribute nearly $3 trillion to the
industry. But too often their contributions go unpaid and
unrecognized – and stories of their impact go untold. As we seek to
increase the numbers of women in leadership in the field of global
health, we are highlighting the valuable work and achievements of
these women.
Research has shown that women and girls are disproportionately
affected by disease2, and that when women are in leadership roles,
they will make decisions that are more supportive of women and
children and lead to improved women’s health outcomes.3 Improving
women’s health is a central focus of the global health community4
and advancing gender equality is therefore seen by many as a means
of benefitting communities and public health.
“These women are working tirelessly to improve global health
with dedication and passion to champion better healthcare for all.
To change the face of global health for the future, we are
committed to help recognize, develop and grow women’s leadership –
and to start by sharing the stories of women leading the charge,”
said Terri Bresenham, President and CEO of Sustainable Healthcare
Solutions, GE Healthcare. “At GE Healthcare, we place tremendous
value on training and education of healthcare professionals across
emerging markets and we are starting from the frontlines by
ensuring that 50 percent of our training places are available for
women.”
"Investing in girls and women results in greater societal
return. It is acknowledged that women are underpaid and
under-recognized in many workforces. In the global health field, it
becomes more pervasive as women are at the front lines, taking on
the toughest health challenges to ensure there are healthier
communities, yet they are not represented in decision-making
positions. As we celebrate women in global health, we are taking a
moment to recognize women's contributions to health and highlight
their achievements. Through shining a light on the great leaders we
have in the field, we aim to inspire everyone to do more to advance
gender equality for the benefit of communities and public health
all over the world,” said Roopa Dhatt, Director and Co-founder of
Women in Global Health.
The nominees have been selected across a number of focus areas
and countries:
Increasing confidence/position of women in healthcare
roles
Dr. Sharmila Anand (India) – Dr. Anand leads Santosh
Educational & Health Care Pvt Ltd. (SEHPL), a social enterprise
which focuses on developing the next generation of healthcare
professionals and leaders who can transform the way healthcare is
delivered in India. She works on various initiatives that focus on
enhancing the skills of people in healthcare at various levels.
Sreytouch Vong (Cambodia) – Vong is a research fellow,
affiliated with ReBUILD and RinGs consortium which deals with
gender analysis. She has engaged in extensive health system
research and public health research, that focuses on improving
health financing, gender and human resources, and nutrition within
healthcare systems. Vong is also working to form a group of health
researchers to bridge gaps between users of evidence and the
research community in Cambodia.
Health workforce
Elvira Dayrit (Philippines) – Dayrit has worked in the
Philippine Department of Health for 27 years. She is dedicated to
making government health programs work effectively, efficiently,
and in a wide enough scale to create health impact. She is
currently the Bureau Director for Health Human Resources where she
works to streamline the Bureau.
Dr. Semakaleng Phafol (Lesotho) – Dr. Phafol is a Lesotho
Professional Nurse and Education Specialist with more than 25 years
of experience in nursing practice, nursing education,
community/public health and management of clinical services. She
has helped to establish and strengthen clinical placements for over
1000 nursing midwifery students at over 60 health centres.
Mwanamvua Boga (Kenya) – Boga is a nurse manager working
with the Kenya Medical Research Institute – Wellcome Trust Research
Programme in Kilifi on the Kenyan coast. She works in a high
dependency pediatric unit at the Kilifi County Hospital that
provides clinical care in parallel to conducting medical research
in tropical diseases. The unit admits children with a range of
conditions including extremely premature babies, children with
meningitis, severe malaria, sepsis, cancers and more.
Improvements in Maternal and Neonatal, Child Health
Mercy Owuor (Kenya) - Owuor is a Community Programs
Director at Lwala Community Alliance where she provides leadership
for community programs including efforts to improve maternal and
child health, adolescent sexual and reproductive health and HIV
care, treatment and stigma reduction. She also works to build the
independence of young adolescent girls through mentorship and
economic empowerment.
Rohani Dg Te’ne (Indonesia) – Te’ne has worked in health
for more than 20 years and is now a volunteer community health
motivator for Tamaona community health centre. The rural area where
Te’ne lives is not accessible by vehicle so she escorts local
villagers needing healthcare and especially pregnant women, to the
community health centre through difficult terrain which can take
over an hour by foot.
Sexual reproductive health and rights
Margaret Gyapong (Ghana) – Gyapong is currently a Medical
Anthropologist at the University of Health and Allied Science in
Ghana. Until March 2017, she was the Deputy Director for Research
and Development in the Ghana Health Service. Gyapong has also
helped turn the Dodowa Health Research Centre into an institution
of international repute.
Emmah Kariuki (Kenya) – As a Service Delivery Officer
with Jhpiego in Kenya, Kariuki works to bring low cost health
innovations to disadvantaged communities. This entails providing
technical support for service delivery in family planning
reproductive health. Kariuki also provides training to healthcare
providers, develops training materials, coordinates research
activities and supports the Ministry of Health in the
implementation of family planning and reproductive activities.
Kwanele Asante (South Africa) – Patient activist, lawyer
and bioethicist, Asante serves as Chair of the Ministerial Advisory
Committee on Cancer and has founded and led an effort to end
disparities in global cancer. Asante works to ensure that the voice
of patients facing barriers to care is elevated to give them a
greater chance at prolonging their life.
Improvements in Migrant Health
Dr. Aula Abbara (Greece) – Dr. Abbara is the project lead
in Greece for the Syrian American Medical Society Global Response,
which provides primary healthcare to refugees together with the
Greek authorities and International Non-Governmental Organisations.
The range of services provided includes: pediatric and maternal
health and delivering a Teaching Recovery Techniques program with
the Children and War Foundation. Dr. Abbara also teaches healthcare
workers in Turkey on topics related to infectious disease.
Young Women's Health
Samalie Kitooleko (Uganda) – Kitooleko is a nurse in
charge of the Uganda Rheumatic Heart Disease Registry. She takes
care of patients with chronic cardiovascular illnesses such as
congenital heart disease, myocardial infarction and rheumatic heart
disease (RHD). She realized an increasing number of RHD patients,
especially young women, lacked knowledge about their illness and
were dying due to preventable complications which inspired her to
champion for patient education.
Louise Nilunger Mannheimer (Sweden) – Mannheimer is Head
of Unit at the Health and Sexuality Unit at the Public Health
Agency of Sweden where she is currently leading a team responsible
for the national coordination of sexual and reproductive health and
rights. Her work also includes HIV prevention of young adults, LGBT
rights and tackling male violence against women.
With these awards, Women in Global Health, GE Healthcare and our
partners aim to celebrate the contributions of women leaders in
global health, whose work is championing better health in their
communities. We worked closely with our partner organisations to
identify women who have made an impact in categories listed above.
This list is by no means comprehensive and we are aware that there
are many more women out there making great achievements and
advances to improve global healthcare at all ends of the spectrum.
The focus of this honor is telling the stories of those women who
are making an impact at the local, grassroots level and in
traditionally under-represented communities.
A documentary premiering in June 2017
Recognizing the need for these untold stories to reach beyond
Geneva, GE Healthcare will be previewing a new documentary that
follows three of these women from sunrise to sunset to answer one
question: how have these individuals made an impact on
the disparity that exists in global health in a way much
of the world is still striving to do? Premiering in June,
Heroines of Health takes us from South Sulawesi, Indonesia,
where Mrs. Rohani wakes up at 4 a.m. for her morning prayer so she
can walk pregnant mothers to the nearest health center; to Lwala,
Kenya, where Mercy Owuor educates her community about health
issues; to Chennai, India, where Dr.. Sharmila Anand is enabling
young women to gain employment through a radiology training
program. Three women. Three countries. Three stories untold. Until
now. Watch the trailer at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy6YJHcPr8I.
About GE Healthcare:
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and
services to meet the demand for increased access, enhanced quality
and more affordable healthcare around the world. GE (NYSE: GE)
works on things that matter - great people and technologies taking
on tough challenges. From medical imaging, software & IT,
patient monitoring and diagnostics to drug discovery,
biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies and performance
improvement solutions, GE Healthcare helps medical professionals
deliver great healthcare to their patients. For more information
about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.
About Women in Global Health:
Women in Global Health (WGH) is a global movement that brings
together all genders and backgrounds to achieve gender equality in
global health leadership. We believe that everyone has the right to
attain equal levels of participation in leadership and
decision-making regardless of gender. WGH creates a platform for
discussions and collaborative space for leadership, facilitates
specific education and training, garners support and commitment
from the global community, and demands change for Gender
Transformative Leadership. WGH is a virtually based network,
registered in California, USA.
1 WHO, Spotlight on statistics: A fact file on health workforce
statistics. Gender and health workforce statistics, Issue 2,
February 2008. Available online at:
http://www.who.int/hrh/statistics/spotlight_2.pdf
2 Increasing Women in Leadership in Global Health
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4167801/
3 Increasing Women in Leadership in Global Health
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4167801/
4 United Nations: We can end poverty: Millenium development
goals and beyond 2015.
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/bkgd.shtml.
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GE HealthcareHannah Huntly, +44 7887
824201Hannah.huntly@ge.comorWomen in Global HealthCaity
JacksonCaity.Jackson@womeningh.orgInfo@womeningh.org
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