12/05/2026
This months/Meeting International Officer Report on our Country of Study Ukraine: 12th May 2026
With CWA having a passion, focus and vision for Women and children’s health, education, advocacy and support, each report I make will focus on one of these topics. Today’s topic is Health.
Health in Ukraine, especially for women, face significant challenges trying to, and accessing health services due to the ongoing war, with more than 34% of households reporting barriers to primary care, particularly in front-line areas. This includes but is not limited to: Lack of medication and supplies being able to get into the country, financial barriers to be able to pay for their needed medication if they can access it, due to lack of their employment. Leading to more than 56 deaths per day just from not receiving required medication, of that 56, 39 are female. Infrastructure damage with more than 2,400 health facilities been destroyed, damaged or severely limiting care availability throughout the country. Other key issues are:
Contraception, Fertility & Births: The conflict has severely disrupted access to family planning and reproductive health services being available, with many reports of births taking place in bomb shelters and lacking the required and sterile equipment a woman needs whilst during and after birth. Reports have also shown that 4.6 million internally displaced persons face intensified difficulties accessing reproductive health services. Babies are being born preterm, whilst women are fighting infections that cannot be treated due to lack of medication and support. In rural and frontline areas, mobile medical teams and emergency units are utilized to provide care, including ultrasound and reproductive health services, however they simply cannot keep up with barriers faced on a day-today basis, nor cater and care for every woman in this situation/position.
Cancer Care: Since 2020, a higher-than-average incidence of malignant tumours are being found during mobile examinations of the ovaries and cervix, with the highest percentage of women being between the ages of 23 and 34. Sadly these issues result in devastating statistics in fertility (ability to fall pregnant) if lucky enough to survive.
Mental Health and Specialized Care
• Mental Health Needs: There is a high demand for psychological support to address war-related stress and trauma across the country with a rise of more than 87% of women being diagnosed or presenting with issues and struggles they didn’t have prior to 2020.
• LGBTIQ+ Access: Amongst the LGTBQIA+ community, especially those in the transgender group are struggling to maintain access to the required hormone therapies they require, leading to higher rates of mental instability, struggles and su***de, with a rise of 24% in just 5 months.
Impact on Female Health Workers
• Workload and Safety: Women make up a large portion of healthcare responders but are underrepresented in leadership (under 20% of decision-making) and often face, along with other mothers, extreme challenges balancing work with childcare during school closures.
As you can see with the statistics shown, woman in Ukraine today are greatly disadvantaged than to those of us in Australia, especially when it comes to health and accessing required support, whether that be mental health, fertility or birth, medication etc. It is up to us as woman to not only listen to stories such as these, but to advocate on their behalf, raise money to get centres back up and running, providing safe birthing kits and environments for women to give birth safely and to be their voice when they can’t speak, hear them and listen when they do, and act (as best we can) whether we are asked or not, why? Because we are women, if we don’t help make a change, who will?
Thank you.
Lozz Williams
