Alberta government aims to close health care disparities for women with $26 million injection

The Alberta government says it is taking steps to improve the health of women and children, keeping its promise to spend $26 million on expanding research and newborn screening programs.

This year's budget provides $10 million over two years to create the Alberta Women's Health Foundation Legacy Grant to support research into health conditions such as cervical cancer, cardiovascular disease and other diseases that particularly affect women. has been assigned.

The Calgary Health Foundation will also receive $10 million over two years for women's health research.

The foundation says the funding will help fill gaps in understanding of women's health issues, including risks for certain diseases, prevention, testing and treatment needs.

“This investment is a concrete step towards closing gender disparities in medical practice, policy, research and health care delivery,” said Dr. Erin Brennand, Chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Calgary Region.

“It’s time for women’s health care and research to receive the attention and funding it deserves.”

Conditions that especially affect women are “misunderstood” and “undertreated,” she said, describing what she's heard from patients at Foothills Medical Center. Stories include struggles to access menopausal care and treatment for other conditions such as pelvic floor disease and endometriosis.

“This $10 million injection from the Government of Alberta marks an important milestone for women's health in our province,” said Murray Sigler, president and CEO of the Calgary Health Foundation. said.

Brennand said part of the funding will be used to develop a Calgary-based rapid access clinic for gynecological conditions, where a multidisciplinary team will quickly provide medical evaluation, screening and treatment for acutely ill patients. It is said that it can be done.

“We know that wait times for reproductive health care are increasing. It can take up to two years to see a reproductive health care professional.” [Calgary],” she said.

“For the past two months, every call I've made here in the Foothills has been to tell women that they have advanced reproductive cancer because their uterus was bleeding and they couldn't be seen quickly enough. I'm telling the truth when I say it had something to do with it.'' ”

Funding disparity, attention level

“Women's health issues receive alarmingly less funding and attention than men's health,” said a news release from the Calgary Health Foundation.

“In Alberta, this is lower than the national average of 8 per cent of medical research funding going to women's health, a statistic that we hope will benefit women with this $10 million investment.”

According to 2021 Alberta Women's Health Foundation ReportOnly 3.4% of the state's research funding goes to women's health research.

Charlene Rutherford, the organization's president and CEO, welcomed the announcement and noted that advances in treatment begin with research.

“This is happening because more scientists are focusing on areas that have historically been difficult to study due to lack of funding and lack of participation in clinical trials,” Rutherford said. .

“These gaps are historic and are precisely why unexplained side effects, significant delays in diagnosis, and even misdiagnosis continue to occur across the women's health field.”

newborn screening

The state government is also spending $6 million on its expansion. Alberta Newborn Screening Programtests infants for a variety of conditions, including metabolic and endocrine disorders, with the goal of starting treatment early and reducing complications and mortality.

4 new conditions A total of 26 items will be added to the list.

“This program will be one of the most comprehensive in the country as Alberta will be the first province to review the four new conditions.”

Health Minister Adriana Lagrange said delays in diagnosing some of the diseases included in the screening program could lead to developmental delays and even death.

“Every day we see that early diagnosis of these diseases makes a difference. It can be the difference between a severely disabled child and a healthy, normally growing child,” says metabolic geneticist Eliza. Dr. Phillips said. Alberta Children's Hospital.

“For these families, it's life-changing.”

The program already screens for 22 conditions, including spinal muscular atrophy, cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease, through heel prick tests and blood analysis.

A spokesperson for the Minister of Health said the expansion of the testing program would include upgrading information technology, relocating laboratories, upgrading testing equipment and investigating health evidence.

The provincial government says 99.2 per cent of newborns in Alberta will be tested in 2022-2023, with 98.95 per cent of results reported within 10 days.

According to the state, 282 of the 47,147 infants tested last year had abnormal test results.