Health and Quality of Life

RM 0 Needed Donation

Informing Policy

NCWO participated in several meetings at the Ministry of Health in discussions pertaining to the health of women. Through these engagements we were able to contribute to the Ministry of Health’s Action Plan for Women’s Health and Action Plan for
the Impact of Violence Against Women.

When the Ministry was considered dispensing separation as one of the amendments to the Pharmacy Bil, NCWO sent a memorandum (Appendix D) to the Minister of Health and a letter to the media on the same. The memorandum called for the government to reconsider dispensing separation as it will severely impact women and other vulnerable groups like the elderly and indigenous population who will face challenges in accessing both the physician and pharmacy. Moreover, we advised that these groups will also face higher cost of medicines with the new policy.

The NCWO MenCare Initiative, a collaboration between Pfizer and NCWO, is an advocacy programme which endeavours to encourage men to support breast cancer screening for the women in their lives, with the ultimate goal of reducing morbidity and mortality associated with breast cancer. The MenCare initiative has been successful over the past five years – its first phase in 2006 concentrated on production of a training manual and handbook for service providers to engage men to be more aware about breast health and breast disease and in the second phase, MenCare 2007, regional workshops were held to increase the mass of MenCare advocates throughout the country.