If women could write a prescription for better health care, what laws would they pitch in Springfield first?
That was the question posed to more than 100 south suburban community leaders who gathered at Governors State University on Saturday to help set a legislative agenda for women’s health care reform.
Topping that list was state funding for more prevention and wellness programs, closely followed by cultural awareness training for health care providers. The participants said there also ought to be caps on medical fees, subsidies for respite care and a patient bill of rights that would give consumers more say in their managed care programs.
The summit participants also wanted more research done on the possible link between stress and women’s illness.
Billed as the first Illinois women’s health summit, the forum coordinated by state Sen. Debbie Halvorson (D-Crete) and the state Office of Women’s Health sought input from women in the trenches of the field.
“We’ve been too quiet, too controlled, too passive for too long,” said Halvorson, who broached the forum idea to the state office and helped get pharmaceutical companies to sponsor it. “I want to understand where we go from here. What do you, as women, want to reform in the field of health care?”
From nurses, psychologists and shelter workers to community health service directors, health corporation lawyers and township representatives, the invited guests spent five hours crafting a legislative wish list.
The suggestions were culled from three separate work groups that addressed economic, cultural and legislative barriers to improved health care.
The sessions were preceded by brief talks by each of the work-group moderators: Patricia Segel, human resource director at the Ray Graham Association and a 20-year veteran of benefits planning; Bambade Shakoor-Abdullah, executive director of the Leadership Development Institute, a non-profit research and training program; and Delilah Brummet Flaum, a Chicago lawyer specializing in health care issues and a member of the Governor’s Commission on the Status of Women.
The summit proposals will be compiled in a report that will go to the Governor’s Commission on the Status of Women and state legislators, according to Sharon Green, deputy director of the Office of Women’s Health, a division of the Illinois Department of Public Health created by executive order last June.
The forum could serve as a prototype for other gatherings around the state, said Green.
Although the majority of participants were from the 40th Illinois Senate district, the forum also drew women from outside the region, including Mary Lou England, DuPage County director of community health services, and Jayne Bazos, a clinical psychologist with offices in Northbrook and Chicago.
Legislators have a special incentive to listen to women’s concerns, said Shakoor-Abdullah, who noted that women are often the decision makers about family medical care.
“Women hold up half the sky, and when women aren’t healthy, they can’t hold up their half,” she said.