event details - World Health Day Women Leadership in Health

Every year WHO Health Day is celebrated on 7th April with different themes. The Theme of WHO 75th Health day 2023 is “Health for All”. WHO is celebrating health days since 1948 with different themes every year, which is highlighted in medical schools, seminars, workshops, and discussion forums. The day is all about creating awareness for the health issues of the needy and the less fortunate in poor regions around the world, as well as reminding us to be grateful for our health and to better take care of ourselves.

WHO’s 75th anniversary year is an opportunity to look back at public health successes that have improved quality of life during the last seven decades. It is also an opportunity to motivate action to tackle the health challenges of today ̶ and tomorrow.

As countries are moving towards achieving universal health coverage with main stay of Primary health care and achieving health products with financial protection(SDG3.8a and 3.8b) Health for all can not be achieved without resilient health system with inclusive approach. Health infra structure , health financing , medicines and vaccines and Human resource for health are four major components of health system. Human resource for health is central especially in emergencies as seen in pandemic and floods 2022 in Pakistan.

Globally 70% of Health workforce consists of women 80% in nursing and 90% midwifery role , deliver the majority of unpaid care and domestic work in families and communities and make the majority of health purchasing and usage decisions. Women lead the delivery of health to 5 billion people and contribute an estimated US$ 3 trillion annually to global health, half in the form of unpaid work.2 Yet women hold only 25% of leadership roles in health while men only 30% in health work force holds 75% of leader ship role. This gender inequity is not only on woman s shoulders. Stereo typical role and capacity of women is bigger barrier. Strong and effective Health systems needs gender transformative policies. Inequity/ Inequality in health can be addressed by Gender Transformative Leadership, an approach for leaders of all genders ,improves health outcomes by addressing the legal ,cultural and social barriers that prevent women working in health globally from attaining positions in management leadership and the status quo is to change, all leaders in health must intentionally promote gender transformative policies as the basis for strong and effective health systems to wards achieving Health for All. .

Global data has shown that only 12% of global CEOs are women(Forbes 2022)only 23% of global delegates in WHA 2022 were women and so on. Some of barriers are Gender norms, Motherhood penalty, gender stereo type and male bonus syndrome.