IT is ironic that females, who make up 70 per cent of the global healthcare workforce, are also the most neglected when it comes to women's health issues.
In Malaysia, 97 per cent of more than 100,000 registered nurses are female.
Despite this, awareness about certain diseases that affect women, such as breast cancer, HPV infections and period pains or menstrual cramps, remains low.
Recognising this disparity, what are the steps we need to take to reduce the inequality and gap that exist between women healthcare workers and women's health needs?
One problem lies in the occupational segregation in the healthcare industry.
Women are overrepresented in the profession as nurses and care workers.
Men, on the other hand, dominate high-paying leadership positions as physicians and surgeons.
Consequently, the lack of women's representation in leadership positions in healthcare could explain the lack of communal awareness of women's health.
Given the dominance of women in healthcare work, it is disappointing that there is still so little knowledge about preventive care in Malaysia.
Better awareness means taking an active approach to prevent certain illnesses that affect women more than men.
However, the National Health and Morbidity Survey carried out in 2019 showed that the breast screening rate was extremely low.
Three in four women aged 40 and above in Malaysia have never had a mammogram.
In the case of cervical cancer caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV) among women, a study to gauge the awareness of HPV among university students showed that there was a low level of knowledge about HPV vaccination and cervical cancer.
Only about 30 per cent of non-medical faculty students were knowledgeable about the matter.
Another example of the neglect of women's health issues is period or menstrual leave in Malaysia.
Such medical leave is foreign here, leaving those suffering from dysmenorrhea, more commonly known as period pain and menstrual cramps, in agony and fearing workplace discrimination if they need a MC every month.
In Indonesia and the Philippines, menstrual leave of a day or two exists without any stigma attached to it.
There are solutions to the issues highlighted here.
However, the first and most essential step is to raise awareness about health issues affecting girls and women. When this is addressed, then the healthcare system can respond to women's health and demands.
The campaigns could be modelled on campaigns like those concerning breast cancer and cervical cancer, but expanded to reach even schoolchildren — both boys and girls.
Awareness campaigns should also target men: boys and fathers who play a role in families, organisations and communities to ensure that women are not stigmatised for their biological differences, like taking and having access to menstrual leave.
The government could provide incentives, like the free HPV immunisation in 2019.
A more government-oriented approach would provide a push and encouragement for organisations to introduce more gender-sensitive policies, and the 2022 Budget could also allocate more funds to women's health.
At the same time, it acts as a pull factor in the changing of mindsets on the topic of women's health.
This article highlights how occupational segregation and the lack of women in leadership positions affects women's health. The solution to the problem lies in raising awareness levels combined with robust government policies. We need to care collectively about women, like how they are taking care of us.
The writer is a senior researcher at the Social Policy and National Integration department, Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times