Debate contribution: Women's Health Strategy

Debate contribution by Miss Órlaithí Flynn on 13 February 2024.

MLA

Miss Órlaithí Flynn

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

13 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Women's Health Strategy

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4206236

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I welcome you to your new position as Deputy Speaker. I am happy to speak in support of the Alliance motion and the amendment. I will mention some of the work of the all-party group on women's health, which we established three years ago in order for MLAs, organisations and individuals to have the chance to come together and discuss our shared interest in women's health. I give a special mention to Pam Cameron from the DUP, the group's original vice chair. Paula Bradshaw has been brilliant, and she is the current vice chair. Sinéad McLaughlin, Linda Dillon and Robbie Butler also come to the meetings frequently, and I am sorry if I have left anybody out. It has been great that we have already seen genuine cross-party consensus on women's health through the all-party group structure, so I hope that there is full support for the motion when the debate finishes today. I know that I may be repeating some of what others have already mentioned, but, to give Members a sense of the all-party group's work, since its establishment, we have covered numerous really important topics. The problem is that each topic that we have covered has been as important as the others, and that will be a challenge when we are putting in place a proper and robust women's health strategy. We need to ensure, and it will be difficult, that we are inclusive and aware of all the issues that impact on a woman's health throughout her lifespan. We are talking about a lot of important topics. Some of the topics that we have covered in the APG structure include human rights and pregnancy; childbirth; maternity services; perinatal mental health services; miscarriage; fertility; baby loss; mesh; menopause; breastfeeding; mental health; pelvic health; and abortion. There is an even longer list of issues that we have yet to cover: gynae services and endometriosis, which have already been spoken about; addiction; cervical cancer; breast cancer; and the more specific issues of gender gaps that Linda touched on with respect to the amendment, which include bone health, heart health, autism, self-harm and eating disorders. I have no doubt that I have missed out a lot of things, but that shows how many massive issues we are talking about and need to grapple with in order to show what the strategy will look like. I take on board what Diane Dodds said. Practically, we need to deliver things and get things done in the interim, because this will be a vast piece of work. The list gives Members a sense of how much we need to do in order to achieve gender equality in our health system. We know that the health system was designed by men, and, sadly, at different times in history, we have repeatedly seen that it has let women down. There have been scandals and a lack of investment in the issues that we have been talking about. Alan Chambers mentioned the lack of knowledge and understanding of some of the issues that a woman will go through in her life that a man will not. We know that women live longer than men —.

Yes, I completely agree. I spoke on that issue this morning with regards to the Hughes report. I genuinely hope that we can get cross-party consensus for trying to get some of that work over the line for local women who have been injured by mesh. Without having an overall strategy, we lack a joined-up approach across our trusts. Again, we are lagging behind other parts of these islands that already have strategies and action plans in place. We need there to be urgency around that. I come back to Sorcha Eastwood's mention of the mesh implants scandal. I was going to come on to that next. As we know, women make up half of the population and half of our workforce; yet, sadly, we also know that they have been failed miserably over many decades, as multiple scandals have come to light. Those have caused much harm and hurt to women. There are the mesh, thalidomide and mother-and-baby scandals, as well as cervical smears, which have been spoken about. That is to name only a few. Those issues have massive impacts on the health and mental health of our women.

Yes, of course. I will finish with a point about maternity services, as I cannot finish my speech without giving consideration to that. We need the women's health strategy, and, when Mary Renfrew has concluded her reports, we need a renewed maternity strategy. There have been shout-outs to some of the guests in the Public Gallery, and I want to mention the Community Foundation Northern Ireland and the grassroots women who are with them today: I look forward to working with them.

809 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not qualifying

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:35 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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