Ms. Alisha Moopen, Deputy Managing Director, Aster DM Healthcare

Wishing women across the globe on this occasion of This International Day of Action for Women’s Health. I hope that all of us continue to start taking a lot more concrete steps towards taking care of our health. If the last year has taught us anything it is that health is the most important. For women as key nurturers of our homes, it is important for us to be the role models for healthy behaviours and healthy actions so that our families can follow. It is also for women to ensure that we are healthy to take care of our loved ones. In my opinion, it is three main things for us to focus on- the three ‘Ms’ which is mind, mouth and movement. The movement to ensure that we are physically active by moving our bodies for 25mins to an hour a day goes a long way in keeping our mind and body better. On the mouth- 80% of our health constitutes our nutrition, so ensuring consumption of a balanced diet along with supplements is essential. Lastly, as we are surrounded by fear and a lot of negative messages, Keeping a positive attitude despite all that’s going on and taking care of your mental health is the most important. By reducing the news consumed and taking time out for yourselves the emotional toll will be brought down.

Dr. Harish Pillai, CEO- Aster India, Aster DM Healthcare

Globally and historically we have seen that women-centred societies and communities have fared much better in their social and health indices, which is a clear pointer that empowerment of women should be a key thrust of policymakers, which in turn will cascade towards better health outcomes. We have several examples of the same within the Indian context like the state of Kerala which is uniquely positioned with the reverse sex ratio with more women than men as a share of its population and also the world-renowned Grameen Model of Bangladesh which also looked at empowerment of women as the key to trickle-down economic theory. On this International Day of Action for Women’s Health, we must ensure that women’s rights are strongly advocated and health priorities are taken into serious account. Improvement in healthcare services along with education can be the most significant intervention to make women aware of their rights, and also prevent them from becoming easy prey to severe emotional and mental disturbances. Lastly, given the pandemic, access to quality maternal health care must be sustained and it must guarantee a woman’s informed consent and decision-making in the context of childbirth.

Mr. Viswanath Swarup, COO, Bharat Serums & Vaccines Ltd.

On the occasion of International Day of Action for Women’s Health, women form an important and equal part of our society, however, when we look at the healthcare outcomes, their outcomes are much below than male counterparts. When we look at preventable causes we still have about 800 women lose their lives everyday due to preventable causes. Unfortunately 1 in 5 of these are in India alone. When we talk about a condition like Anaemia, unfortunately here again more than 50% of women across age groups deal with this condition. When we talk about reproductive rights, access to safe abortion services, here again 14% of all maternal deaths have been due to this condition The government is trying its best with initiatives like Aayushman Bharat, however, we need a deeper and clearer focus for the issue of women’s health. Unfortunately we still spend less than 1.5% of our GDP on healthcare, 75% of our healthcare infrastructure is still in urban areas, which means that women in non-urban areas still struggle to find access to basic healthcare infrastructure. With that, I think that these initiatives will help us drive awareness and the required action to address this important cause.