ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE SERVICES IN TERMS OF GENDER

Abstract

Health is a concept that is influenced by both biological and sociological elements, evaluated not only physically, but also spiritually, cognitively and socially, and retains its importance for a period of time from before birth to the last moment of life of individuals. Since the health of each individual who makes up the society directly or indirectly affects the productivity and development of that society, the health of individuals occupies a very important place in terms of the society to which they belong. Factors such as the place where the person who will receive health care lives, family structure, level of education, or points of view of the society to which he/she belongs, create some obstacles to access services. Although all individuals who make up society have the right to benefit from these services unhindered, gender inequality, which arises from society's value judgments and is at the forefront of gender discrimination, directly or indirectly affects women more negatively in receiving these services. Educational status of women, whether or not she's in work life, family background and upbringing, they didn’t have enough information about how to access health care services and to take advantage of not only factors such as the health services can request this service to make it even harder. At the heart of this situation are judgments arising from the gender roles that society provides to women and some beliefs that are considered taboo. As a result of gender inequality, when women encounter a health problem, they abstain on issues such as sharing this situation, getting information about the problem they are experiencing, and in some cases ignore the health problem or postpone treatment. Therefore, even a physiological and treatable health problem becomes an important problem that can be evaluated psychologically over time due to obstacles to access to health services. In this study, it was aimed to explain in detail the reflections of the concept of gender in access to health care services offered in Turkey, to examine the areas where equality between men and women and gender discrimination arise in a theoretical framework. In the conclusion part of the study, proposals were made to carry out studies to support the development of gender and the concept of equality in access to health care services.