Gov’t works to value female agents in national health care network

Brazilian Health Minister Nísia Trindade Lima said Thursday (Mar. 9) the ministry is developing an initiative to value female workers of the country’s Unified Health System, or SUS, Brazil’s free national network of hospitals and care stations. Women, she pointed out, now make up more than 60 percent of its agents.

“We’re 2 million SUS workers. This is going to be a key program in our administration—not a secretariat or a department. The issue of gender parity and the fight for women’s rights in all dimensions will guide our actions in the coming years,” she said, while participating in the online debate Women and Global Health, of the Center for International Relations in Health of research foundation Fiocruz, held as part of the International Women’s Day.

Femicide

Femicide, the minister said, must be tackled with interministerial policies. “Four women suffer violence in the country every hour, and more than one woman is targeted and die every day just for being a woman. We cannot remain silent. Rather, we must remember that gender issues are made all the worse by racial inequalities, as black and indigenous women are among the most severely affected.”

It is the ministry’s goal to provide full care to women from childhood to old age, she argued. “That’s an agenda that includes human rights, the dignity of women, and game-changing policies that were once among the priorities of the ministries of Health, Women, Racial Equality, among others,” she listed.