Dare to dream : Women and primary health care, February 2004

In early February 2004, over 40 people participated in a national workshop in Winnipeg, sponsored by the National Coordinating Group on Health Care Reform and Women, a working group of the Women’s Health Contribution Program supported by the Bureau of Women’s Health and Gender Analysis of Health Canada, to discuss primary health care reform in Canada from the perspective of women (see Appendix B f [...] Workshop Purpose The purpose of the workshop was to bring together constituencies with different perspectives on primary health care reform in relation to women in order (1) to examine primary health care from the perspectives of women in various social and geographic locations, (2) to develop strategies to include women and a gender-based analysis in the planning, development and delivery of prim [...] The issue of the definition and scope of primary health care, and the implications of the definition for care and priorities, was a central issue for some participants. [...] The group hotly debated the value of broadening the definition of primary health care to reaffirm the principles of the Declaration of Alma Ata (see Appendix G) versus the practicalities of working with a framework that defines primary health care as the first point of contact with the health care system. [...] Women and Primary Health Care 7 February 2004 Finally, as the rest of this document elaborates in more detail, the workshop participants identified the need to learn from successful innovations in primary health care to inform primary health care reform.