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What we can learn from World Menopause Day, by Pauline Garvey

By Georgiana Murariu, on 17 January 2020

To mark and celebrate World Menopause Day, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Association (INMA) in collaboration with Loretta Dignam, founder of the organisation the Menopause Hub held an evening event entitled ‘#No Taboo’. To this event Dignam invited speakers who are specialists in the area including a dietitian, a consultant nurse from the NHS (UK) and singer Mary Coughlan amongst others.

Coinciding with the event, the INMA issued a position paper to assist their members and other women in the workplace to recognise the issue, noting that:

“…there are over 300,000 women working in Ireland between the ages of 45 and 64, and around 80% of those will experience symptoms leading up to menopause.  We would like to work with employers to create positive employment policies, as we do with other health and wellbeing-related issues. Currently there is an absence of policies on this issue.” [1]

One of the objectives of the event was to remove the perceived taboos surrounding menopause and encourage members of the general public to engage with such issues. The event was fully booked, and not only did women turn up in numbers, but in some cases their partners were anxious for them to attend. One woman’s husband picked her up from work and surprised her with a ticket and spent the evening ‘wandering around town’ while waiting for her.

A couple of issues were notable about the event. Firstly, except for the son of one of the speakers, no men attended. This is remarkable considering that half the world’s population is affected by menopause and indeed as it was reported later that menopausal women are ‘the fastest growing demographic section in the world’ (Hourican 2019). What other physical or medical condition would attract an audience of exclusively one sex?

Secondly, the keynote given by Barbara Taylor, a retired gynaecologist and writer, was memorable. In the talk itself, and later followed up in national media, Taylor made the point that ‘…most of the conversations we do have, are misplaced. We spend too much time talking about HRT versus no HRT, about breast cancer risks, even debating whether or not menopause is a ‘Thing’. In fact, we should be talking about heart health, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s’. Taylor’s point is not that issues surrounding HRT are unimportant, but that they eclipse other equally important health concerns such as the risk of cardiovascular disease after reaching menopause and the higher occurrence of Alzheimer’s disease among women than among men.  One of the most striking and memorable results of the event therefore was the light it shone on the absences  and silences that surround menopause.

 

 

References:
Emily Hourican 11/11/19 ‘Why women know nothing about the menopause’ The Irish Independent (available online at https://www.independent.ie/life/health-wellbeing/health-features/women-know-nothing-about-menopause-then-it-hits-them-over-the-head-like-a-ton-of-bricks-38674567.html, accessed 11/11/19)
 
[1] https://inmo.ie/Home/Index/217/13535

Health and Ethics – by Pauline Garvey

By Laura Haapio-Kirk, on 1 August 2019

Author: Pauline Garvey

The current advertising slogan for Gaelic Sports Clubs is ‘Where We All Belong’. The girl is shown holding a hurl for the sport called camogie. Gaelic sports including camogie for women and hurling for men have a huge national following, all-Ireland finals easily fill the national stadium with 80,000 spectators.

 

Why is it important to be active, or is it important to be active in specific ways? In recent years there has been mounting focus on health and wellbeing, as evident in the launch of the ‘Healthy Ireland Framework’ (2013-2025) a Government-led initiative that aims to enhance the population’s health. In this initiative health is presented as a public good, of individual and social concern. In the face of troubling temptations that arise with modern lifestyles the launch of this framework explicitly carries an ethical imperative: individual health, it asserts, affects the quality of everybody’s life experience. It is for the collective good to maintain one’s health. The approach recommends that the way to enhance wellbeing is less by focussing on the negative and more by highlighting what one can do to stay well. It recommends, in other words, a focus on the positive instead of the retribution of a poor quality of life that comes with bad behaviour.[i]

Often such initiatives focus on activities. From my fieldwork with middle-class Dubliners I have learned that staying well and being healthy is often talked about as routinised and collective in nature. People gather to walk, run or do yoga and the group aspect is an essential ingredient in the diverse efforts to stay healthy. When people talk of ‘activities’ they are often referring to group activities rather than solitary ones. Lots of keep-fit activities like walking or running can be done alone, yet they seem to be more successful when done with others. Respondents who attend tai chi classes might attend with a friend, and even if they don’t join these groups to extend their social networks they seem to prefer them to following a YouTube course online. This is interesting because it implies there is an added feel-good factor to the demonstration of healthy living beyond the benefits that come with social interaction. It is not just about being healthy, I suggest, but pursuing health in the company of others carries an added benefit in a cultural context where consensus is highly valued.

Younger respondents who have children report emphasis on mindfulness in schools where the health and wellbeing of children and young adults is couched as a social and spiritual category as much as a physical one. The National Council for Curriculum for example states that in ‘health promotion, health is about more than physical health and wellbeing. It is also concerned with social, emotional and spiritual health and wellbeing.’[ii] What we are seeing therefore is an interesting blurring of health, ethics and even spirituality to the degree that it is difficult to discern their distinctions.

 

References:

[i] A Framework For Improved Health and Wellbeing 2013 – 2025, available online https://assets.gov.ie/7555/62842eef4b13413494b13340fff9077d.pdf)

[ii] The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. https://curriculumonline.ie/getmedia/007175e5-7bb7-44c0-86cb-ba7cd54be53a/SCSEC_SPHE_Framework_English.pdf