Debate contribution: Women's Health Strategy

Debate contribution by Mr Colin McGrath on 13 February 2024.

MLA

Mr Colin McGrath

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

13 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Women's Health Strategy

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4206284

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Mr Deputy Speaker, I congratulate you on assuming your role. Our normal contact is through the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly (BIPA) and pints, and, if there is latitude to be given, I want you to know that I always paid my way. I also congratulate Sian on her maiden speech. I welcome the opportunity to speak today, as it is timely to discuss such matters. It has long been acknowledged that there is a significant need for a women's health strategy. We are, after all, the only region of these islands that is without such a strategy. For too long, women's health has been the subject of taboo and stigma across our society. When it has been talked about, it has often been in whispers. I am not embarrassed to say that I am part of the generation that was brought up not really talking about those things. I remember well, in my early 20s, making a phone call to the local hospital. I did not know how to get the words out and eventually asked to be put through to the "female gynae ward", at which point the operator said, "I would hardly put you through to the male gynae ward". That was just the way things were back in the day. I am glad that we have the opportunity to discuss matters and reduce those taboos and, as a result, contribute to addressing the facts that women are 50% more likely to receive the wrong diagnosis when it comes to heart attack, that women here have the worst ovarian cancer survival rates and that gynaecological waiting times are much longer here than anywhere else in the UK. Last year, my colleague Sinéad McLaughlin conducted a survey of women's health. There were hundreds of responses, 90% of which said that service provision was inadequate for the biggest healthcare issues that affected women. It is not acceptable that that is the perception. When discussing essential healthcare matters such as menstrual health, the menopause or other issues, as mentioned in the motion, we must listen to women. I echo the remarks of my colleague about the fact that there is a Women's Health Ambassador in other parts and that we could and should replicate that here. The motion gives us the opportunity to set the tone of what the new Assembly term can be about. We are, after all, debating a motion that was proposed by the Alliance Party, with an amendment tabled by Sinn Féin and that calls on the Health Minister from the UUP to bring forward that strategy. There is the potential for all parties to work together to deliver these things. A question has to be asked, however, about why we do not have one now. Why have we not had a strategy previously? We are also without a violence against women and girls strategy, an anti-poverty strategy and an anti-conversion therapy strategy. There are many strategies that we do not have, and we know that it is because of the stop-go politics that we have in this place. I echo the remarks of the leader of the Opposition, my colleague Matthew O'Toole, in asking the First Minister and deputy First Minister to commit to not collapsing the institutions again and to giving us the opportunity to do the work that we need to do to deliver those strategies. In the time during which this place was not sitting, we attended many conferences, and I regularly made the comment that the biggest room in Castle Buildings must be the one in which they put all the strategies, because that is all that we seem to do. We launch a strategy, we get all the attention for that, but we do not actually deliver it. We need to see a change in that. I want to see action plans that sit alongside strategies. I want to see costings and timescales alongside those action plans, so that we know that we will see delivery and action on the strategies that are being put forward. Too often, we build up people's hopes by saying that there will be a strategy, but that lack of delivery simply lets them down. We must see this Assembly term as being about rebuilding trust with the public and providing them with the hope that we will deliver on strategies. This is a very important strategy that should be up there to be delivered quickly.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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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