Content warning: references pregnancy loss
When Reena Rana miscarried her first pregnancy in 2013, she waited at the hospital’s A&E department for hours.
“I was two and a half months pregnant and I started spotting. I rushed to the hospital, and they said, ‘Why don’t you take a seat, we are very busy. They made me sit for four and half hours,” the 36-year-old said.
It wasn’t until Reena lost more blood that she said she was given more attention, and then sent home with the message that she had lost her baby.
“It’s a very emotional time, and there was no empathy. If they could just explain the procedure to me, [instead] they said, ‘When you have big clots, you come and see us’. That’s not very nice.”
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As women across Victoria experience high levels of depression and anxiety, chief executives from the stateâs 12 womenâs health services will call on Treasurer Tim Pallas to include a large sum for gender-specific mental health services in the May 20 budget.
The members of Victoriaâs Womenâs Health Service Council say they would be âdevastatedâ if their budget bid for $59 million, much of it for mental health support, is not met but believe it is unlikely to be.
Women in Victoria are experiencing high levels of anxiety and depression and womenâs health services say support must be funded in the May 20 budget.
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“I had just finished work and was taking the train home. It was crowded, but I could see space.”
Twenty-three-year-old Grace is describing one of the occasions she was harassed in Melbourne.
“I asked a man to move, he didn’t say anything, he didn’t move, just stared at me,” she says. “[Then] he started saying things to me; ‘There’s no space for you. You shouldn’t be on this train. You shouldn’t even be in this country.’”
Grace, whose family moved to Australia from China when she was four, says she regularly experiences harassment in public spaces, and it is often of a sexual and racist nature. She was once told words to the effect of “you have a good chest for a Chinese woman” as she walked down a street.
Sujeevika Kumuduni is participating in the program.
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A female-led community health education program kicked off at St Paul s Lutheran Church on Wednesday, April 7, in a bid to improve health literacy among Shepparton s diverse communities.
Wise Well Women, a joint program convened by Lorna Gillespie and Christine Nunn, will assist 12 refugee and migrant women to provide a bridge between the health system and their respective communities.
Christine Nunn introduces the Wise Well Women program.
Low health literacy is 15 per cent higher among refugee and migrant groups in Australia than the national average.
Ms Gillespie said it was an extremely costly gap leading to higher hospital admissions, lower participation in the health system and increased healthcare costs and mortality.
Putting women in picture: Alliance urges gender focus in implementation of historic mental health reforms miragenews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from miragenews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.