Project period: 2022-2024
Access to high quality, respectful gynaecological care is vastly insufficient in many countries around the world.
Opportunities are frequently missed to prevent, treat and manage gynaecological disorders at an early stage – or at all – because of inadequate training and lack of knowledge among healthcare providers on these conditions. Misdiagnosed and untreated gynaecological disorders can have severe health, economic and psychological consequences for women and girls.
The Gynaecological Health Matters programme works in collaboration with healthcare professionals and partners around the world to change this.
Through comprehensive training on ‘Essential Gynaecological Skills’ the programme targets non-specialist sexual and reproductive health service providers. The training consists of eleven modules that focus on topics that are often lower priorities in national training curriculums but that represent a significant burden of disease. These include cervical cancer, contraception, infertility, early pregnancy loss and obstetric fistula.
In Bangladesh, the Gynaecological Health Matters programme is delivering training for nurses and newly recruited non-specialist doctors in the districts of Kushtia and Dinajpur. It’s also working with a group of Champions to advocate for the adoption and roll out of the training package across the health system in Bangladesh.
Research and advocacy on gynecological health
Through our global research and advocacy the RCOG highlights the impact of gynaecological conditions, particularly those that are not life threatening, but are often life changing. This includes the impact of sexually transmitted infections, early pregnancy loss, unsafe abortion, ectopic pregnancy, infertility and obstetric fistula on women and girls in low and middle-income countries. We are calling for urgent recognition from governments and donors around the world to prioritise and invest more to prevent, diagnose and treat gynaecological health conditions as a critical health and rights issue