Women Caregivers Lack Support

Some 80 percent of home health care in the Americas is provided by women, but this critical work is neither recognized nor remunerated, according to experts on gender and health who gathered at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) for International Women's Day, on March 8.

In a telecast panel discussion, speakers noted that home health care is an essential category of health services, yet women who provide it typically must add it to a host of other daily responsibilities without compensating time or resources. This burden can become a serious obstacle to women's professional development and can put enormous pressure on family relations and domestic budgets.

Mirta Roses, PAHO's director, said in opening remarks for the panel, "If the women of the world went on strike and suspended their community work in health for just one day, the consequences would be catastrophic for global welfare. For this reason, we must call attention to unremunerated work in health and make it visible, so that it can become part of health policies."

Echoing Roses, Pat Armstrong, professor of sociology at York University in Canada, said that despite its indispensability to society as a whole, "this invisible work is rarely even recognized as a skill."

The panelists made a series of recommendations to address the problem:

• Increase support to community health programs and local health centers to enable them to assume more of the burden currently borne by home caregivers.
• Raise awareness among governments to encourage tax breaks for families and individuals who have significant home health care responsibilities.
• Study the impact of health sector reform measures on home health care.

They also called for the establishment of quality control standards for home health care, noting patients' needs often exceed the abilities of the women who care for them.

Other members of the panel were Nicaragua's minister of health, José Antonio Alvarado; María Rosa Renzi, of UNIFEM/Nicaragua; and Félix Rigoli, of PAHO's Human Resources Unit. Elsa Gómez, chief of PAHO's Gender and Health Unit, served as moderator.