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Masked Heroines? Building resilience begins with a Gender-Equitable Health workforce

The panellists highlighted the various issues concerning women health workers which amounts to 70% of the total health workforce. The main issues raised included assaults on women health workers, need to prioritise mental health & psychosocial support for health workers at all levels, problems faced by women health workers when they are expected to wear PPE for very long periods of time & they don't have the option/time to change, the failure when it comes to data on women and the need to produce quantitative and qualitative gender data to understand the dynamics of this COVID-19 pandemic. Shirin Heidari remarked "A large number of health research resources are produced and published by men. Their expertise also tends to get more visibility. It is therefore critical to engage men in this conversation in order to fill the gender data gap." The session concluded by stressing on - To make resilient health systems we really need to think more about the health workforce and how we can create equitable environments for the health workforce to be really supported.

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