Sixty Healthcare Workers Trained to Identify Cases of Gender-Based Violence

Some 60 healthcare workers across the island have benefited from training to identify and handle cases of gender based violence.

The training was conducted recently by the National Family Planning Board (NFPB), in collaboration with Health Policy Plus (HP+).

The initiative was carried out as a training of trainers in the field, who will subsequently administer a similar training of the staff members at their respective health care facilities.

Speaking with JIS News, Technical Officer in the Enabling Environment and Human Rights Unit of the NFPB, Genice Wright, said the mandate of the NFPB to implement sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and HIV integrated policies and programmes, which will contribute to the achievement of the national outcome of a healthy and stable population.

“In light of the fact that SRH accounts for twenty percent of global ill-health and the intersectionality of HIV/AIDS and experience of gender-based violence, it is paramount that healthcare workers are able to identify patients who have experienced gender based violence, assess patients’ risk of violence, better understand those patients’ needs and connect them to other sources of support as appropriate,” Ms. Wright said.

During the training sessions, healthcare workers were taken through a number of key areas including gender norms and behaviours; causes for violence in intimate relationships; the signs of gender-based violence; the link to HIV; ethics; as well as reporting mechanisms for such cases.

According to a United States Agency for International Development/ Statistical Institute of Jamaica and the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention study in 2010, approximately one in five Jamaican females aged 15-49 have experienced intimate partner physical and/or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime.