Berenberg International Women’s Day
By Abby Gilchrist, Senior Associate
Many thanks to Berenberg for hosting their International Women’s Day panel discussion last Thursday at The Tate Modern. With glorious views overlooking the City from the Southbank, the panel discussion, moderated by Berenberg’s Lauma Kalns-Timans, focused on women’s healthcare within the NHS and included an excellent line up of Caroline Perez, #1 Sunday Times best-selling author of ‘INVISIBLE WOMEN: Exposing Data Dias in a world designed for Men’, Peter Turek, Head of Women’s Healthcare at Gedeon Richter and Jo Cruse, Founder of Delivering Better, a movement aiming to create extraordinary change within the maternity care sector of the NHS.
When discussing women’s health, the conversation can’t but help turn towards maternity care, one of the oldest forms of medicine in human history. And yet, despite this, it was still astonishing to hear some of the statistics raised by the panel and from members of the audience who either work in or, through their own pregnancy journeys, experienced some of the following first-hand:
- Of the c.600,000 women who give birth every year, ¼ of them (150,000 women) have a negative birth experience, either physically or mentally.
- The UK has the biggest gender health gap in the G20, with 2/3 of maternity units in the NHS deemed unsafe to give birth in.
- C.90% of all medical research and studies are carried out on male cells. Male and female cells can react in different ways to different medicines, therefore meaning that crucial medical solutions that could work for women aren’t even making it out of the research stage.
If we were to look at the maternity care within the NHS as an individual company, with an annual compensation bill for negligence sitting at over £1bn and around 1/3 of women having negative birth experiences being impacted on their ability to return to work (c.50,000 women a year), the red flags should be flying high and making news headlines daily. This is not a health crisis affecting women, but one that touches all aspects of life, from the office to childcare and has a huge economic impact.
The economic, social, moral and political value in women’s health were clear in fact, and hearing from those at the front line was a fantastic way to celebrate IWD in the City.
Thank you to Berenberg and all your speakers for continuing to raise awareness of this health crisis. If you’d like to help, get involved by signing the Delivering Better open letter to Wes Streeting here: https://deliveringbetter.org/