Annual Reports
The Auckland Women’s Health Council has been in existence for 36 years. Since the first formal meeting which was held in July 1988 the Council has provided a strong voice on women’s health in the Auckland region and has been actively involved in women’s health issues at a national level.
The AWHC continues to maintain a special interest in the issues that arose from the inquiry into the treatment of cervical cancer at National Women’s Hospital and in the implementation of the recommendations in Judge Silvia Cartwright’s Report which was released in August 1988. These issues include the National Cervical Screening Programme, patients’ rights, informed consent, access to patient records, ethics committees, and clinical research.
More than three decades later, the need for a woman’s voice on these issues remains as strong as ever, owing to advances in technology, the changes in the evidence base for screening programmes, the introduction of electronic medical records and the increasing amount of data sharing, the reduction in the number, membership and function of ethics committees, the increasing influence and power of the pharmaceutical industry, and the increasing lack of informed consent in the health sector…