The Hidden Struggles of Women's Health
'I wanted to actually not only freeze my eggs, but freeze time.'
Women face big decisions and even bigger challenges when it comes to their health, so we're sharing some stories that don't get talked about enough. We begin with one woman's decision to freeze her eggs holding space for the future she hopes to build on her own terms. Then, we hear from a woman living with endometriosis – an all-too-common condition that's often misunderstood or misdiagnosed. We speak to an expert to help you or someone you know navigate this disease. Finally, we speak to a thyroid cancer survivor who fought for years to have her symptoms be taken seriously – and a doctor who offers empowering, practical guidance for anyone having the same experience.
This week on Now You Know, we're taking you on a journey through some of our most powerful health stories – stories that speak to the challenges and resilience of women today.
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Al Jazeera
2 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Searching for healing: Inside one of the last hospitals in Haiti's capital
A reporter's experience inside one of the last hospitals in Haiti's capital Orthopedic surgeon Kokou Madou stands in a corridor of the Doctors Without Borders facility in the Tabarre neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti [Odelyn Joseph/AP Photo] Orthopedic surgeon Kokou Madou stands in a corridor of the Doctors Without Borders facility in the Tabarre neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti [Odelyn Joseph/AP Photo] Port-au-Prince, Haiti – Tabarre Hospital in Port-au-Prince does not look as you expect. It is a collection of shipping containers and single-storey modular units, connected by gravel pathways along which two pet peacocks strut, surrounded by barbed-wire fencing. The facility has an air of impermanence to it. That is deliberate. Doctors Without Borders, the nonprofit that runs the place, had always hoped that, at some point, it would not be needed in Haiti. But that day looks a long way off. The country's health system has almost completely collapsed. Tabarre is one of the few trauma hospitals left open in Haiti's capital. Port-au-Prince has turned into a combat zone. Armed groups have seized power in much of the country, and more than 5,600 people were killed last year, according to the United Nations. The mechanical cough of automatic gunfire is now a regular sound in the streets of the capital. Those armed groups are currently fighting government forces. They are winning. They control up to 90 percent of Haiti's capital, and they have joined together to form an alliance called Viv Ansanm, which translates to "Live Together". Police and community-led self-defence groups have been pushed into small pockets of territory. Haiti's interim government, meanwhile, is mired in accusations of infighting and corruption. The country has not held a federal election since 2016. Trapped in the middle of the uncertainty and violence is a desperate, traumatised civilian population. The armed groups are accused of using rape as a weapon of war, maiming civilians and forcing residents from their homes en masse. More than 1 million people in Haiti are currently displaced. And about half the population is going hungry. Amid the crisis, hospital after hospital has been forced to close its doors. The reasons are multiple. It is difficult to get medical supplies and equipment into the capital, for starters: Armed groups control all of the routes in and out of Port-au-Prince. It is also hard for medical staff to get to work. Travelling through the many areas controlled by armed groups is dangerous. Some health professionals have left the country altogether. And hospitals themselves have come under attack. A nurse examines an injured patient at a clinic run by Doctors Without Borders in Port-au-Prince, Haiti [Odelyn Joseph/AP Photo] A nurse examines an injured patient at a clinic run by Doctors Without Borders in Port-au-Prince, Haiti [Odelyn Joseph/AP Photo] Gunmen fired on the capital's largest public healthcare centre, the State University Hospital of Haiti, during a news conference to announce its partial reopening last December. Two journalists and a police officer were killed. In February, one of its buildings was burned. The facility ultimately never reopened. While my Al Jazeera colleagues and I were in the country to shoot a documentary in April, another hospital shut down after armed groups took control of the surrounding area. Doctors Without Borders itself had to suspend its services in Port-au-Prince for three weeks late last year. Its ambulance service was down when we visited, after a convoy faced gunfire in March. But the staff at the Tabarre Hospital carry on. "We consider ourselves the last line of defence in the trauma field, in a way," said Xavier Kernizan, a surgeon. "If Doctors Without Borders were to close, the impact will be really, really heavy for the population." My documentary team spent a week at the hospital. The flow of gunshot wounds to its emergency room rarely slowed during that time. We would sometimes leave the emergency room for a quick break, heading out on the gravel paths to grab some of the powerful black coffee kept in an urn by the guard's hut. Inevitably, when we returned, the emergency room was full with a new raft of patients, many with life-threatening injuries. The only time that the ER was largely empty was at night. At first, we were puzzled. Wasn't that when most of the city's gun battles were taking place? After a couple of days, we realised what was happening: It was too dangerous to transport people through Port-au-Prince's streets in the dark. Victims were forced to lie where they had been shot, waiting for daylight to come. Only then would it be safe enough to take a motorbike or taxi to the hospital. Medical staff operate on a woman at the Doctors Without Border facility in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on May 8 [Odelyn Joseph/AP Photo] Medical staff operate on a woman at the Doctors Without Border facility in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on May 8 [Odelyn Joseph/AP Photo] That was the case for Chrismene Desilhomme and Jean Claude Saget, two cousins who live together and feature in our Fault Lines documentary, The Last Lifeline. She works as a maid, and Jean Claude as a security guard. The cousins arrived at the hospital at 8am after a night spent in agony at their house. Jean Claude had been shot when attackers broke in, and he had a broken leg after jumping off the roof to avoid them. Chrismene too had been fired upon at close range, and her foot was so badly damaged that it had to be amputated the same day. "I don't understand why they shoot at everybody," she said. She was in shock, traumatised and weary. It was unclear why their house was targeted: They had little of value to steal. Another patient at the hospital, who had been shot in the hand, offered a possible explanation. He told us that the armed groups shot civilians to force them out of their homes, so that they could use the buildings to expand their territory. When the man returned to his neighbourhood, he said he discovered that the armed fighters had knocked through the walls of his house and every other one on the row, to create passageways that allowed them to move through the area without being exposed. As the week went on, I began to get used to the hospital. Despite the daily gunfighting outside its walls, it was an island of relative peace for those within. Guards would listen to the soulful reggae of Lucky Dube as they smoked outside their hut, and women occasionally burst into song in the wards. In quiet moments inside the emergency room, there were jokes, laughter and camaraderie, even joy. Medical staff transport a patient on a stretcher through the Tabarre facility on May 8 [Odelyn Joseph/AP Photo] Medical staff transport a patient on a stretcher through the Tabarre facility on May 8 [Odelyn Joseph/AP Photo] The most peaceful area in the entire hospital was a small patio at its centre, where patients rested on benches beneath a wooden pagoda. Nearby, a small, colourful obstacle course helped survivors regain their mobility after surgery and other intensive treatments. That's where we met four-year-old Alexandro and his mother, Youseline Philisma. Alexandro was just one month old when an armed group set fire to the displaced persons camp where they were living. He was plucked from the flames, alive but severely burned. Since then, Youseline had been taking him to Tabarre's burn unit — the only one left in the country. "When I come to the hospital, it's another world. Everybody understands my little one. Everyone gives us a lot of love," she told us. Alexandro will need the burn unit's care for the rest of his life. Surgeon Donald Jacques Severe is among the doctors treating him. Severe could leave the country. His wife and children have already done so, departing four years ago for the United States. Armed fighters had overrun their home. Severe himself has a visa to live in Canada. But so far, he has not left. His fellow surgeon, Xavier Kernizan, tried to explain the sense of duty he and Severe share. "We know that if we're not here, someone will struggle," Kernizan said. "Personally, we are close to burnout. Sometimes we are close to depression. But there is also this satisfying feeling of having helped to improve someone's daily life, of offering a little hope to someone in their darkest moments." But if the security situation continues to deteriorate, it is impossible to know whether Tabarre Hospital will survive. On April 11, my documentary team and I drove out of the hospital gates for the first time in a week. We were heading to Petion-Ville, one of the few places in Port-au-Prince still under government control. There, we walked across a football pitch near the Karibe Hotel, where a helicopter from the World Food Programme picks up passengers. It's the only way out of the capital right now. We clambered into the helicopter, its rotors began their churn, and the Haitian capital began to grow smaller as we rose into the air, sailing above the bubble of violence below. I remember feeling relief. The staff at the hospital stayed behind. They have no intention of leaving.
Al Jazeera
3 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
US Supreme Court backs South Carolina effort to defund Planned Parenthood
The United States Supreme Court has cleared the way for South Carolina to strip the nonprofit healthcare provider Planned Parenthood of funding under Medicaid, a government insurance programme. Thursday's ruling was split along ideological lines, with the three liberal justices on the nine-member court dissenting. The ruling overturned a lower court's decision barring Republican-governed South Carolina from preventing Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, a regional branch, from participating in the state's Medicaid programme. Republican leaders in South Carolina have objected to Planned Parenthood because it provides abortions. The Supreme Court's decision bolsters efforts by Republican-led states to deprive the reproductive healthcare provider of public money. The case centred on whether recipients of Medicaid may sue to enforce a requirement under US law that they may obtain medical assistance from any qualified and willing provider. Medicaid is administered jointly by the federal and state governments, and it is designed to provide healthcare coverage for low-income people. Since the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned its landmark Roe v Wade ruling that legalised abortion nationwide, a number of Republican-led states have implemented near-total bans on the procedure. Some, like South Carolina, prohibit abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic operates clinics in the South Carolina cities of Charleston and Columbia, where it serves hundreds of Medicaid patients each year, providing physical examinations, screenings for cancer and diabetes, pregnancy testing, contraception and other services. The Planned Parenthood affiliate and a Medicaid patient named Julie Edwards sued the state in 2018. A year earlier, in 2017, Republican Governor Henry McMaster had ordered officials to end Planned Parenthood's participation in the state Medicaid programme by deeming any abortion provider unqualified to provide family planning services. The plaintiffs sued South Carolina under an 1871 law that helps people challenge illegal acts by state officials. They said the Medicaid law protects what they called a 'deeply personal right' to choose one's doctor. The South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom conservative legal group and backed by President Donald Trump's administration, said the disputed Medicaid provision in this case does not meet the 'high bar for recognising private rights'. A federal judge previously ruled in Planned Parenthood's favour, finding that Medicaid recipients may sue under the 1871 law and that the state's move to defund the organisation violated Edwards's right to freely choose a qualified medical provider. In 2024, the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Virginia, also sided with the plaintiffs. The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case on April 2. The dispute has reached the Supreme Court three times. The court in 2020 rejected South Carolina's appeal at an earlier stage of the case. In 2023, it ordered a lower court to reconsider South Carolina's arguments in light of a ruling the justices issued involving the rights of nursing home residents. That decision explained that laws like Medicaid must unambiguously give individuals the right to sue.
Al Jazeera
a day ago
- Al Jazeera
US to stop funding global vaccine alliance Gavi, health secretary says
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has announced that the United States will no longer contribute to Gavi, a global health programme that has vaccinated more than one billion of the world's poorest children. In a video that aired at a Gavi fundraising event in Brussels on Wednesday, Kennedy said the group had made questionable recommendations around COVID-19 vaccines. He also raised concerns about the diphtheria-tetanus-whole cell pertussis vaccine, known by the acronym DTPw, though he provided no evidence to support those fears. 'I call on Gavi today to re-earn the public trust and to justify the $8bn that America has provided in funding since 2001,' Kennedy said in the video. Kennedy added that Gavi should consider all available science before investing in vaccines. 'Until that happens, the United States won't contribute more,' he said. The details of the video were first reported by the publication Politico and later by the news outlet Reuters. Gavi said in a detailed statement that safety was one of its top priorities and that it acts in line with World Health Organization recommendations. The statement also indicated that Gavi has full confidence in the DTPw vaccine, which it credits with having helped to cut child mortality in half in the countries it supports since 2000. 'The DTPw vaccine has been administered to millions of children around the world for decades, and is estimated to have saved more than 40 million lives over the past 50 years,' the statement notes. The administration of US President Donald Trump has previously indicated that it planned to cut US funding for Gavi, representing around $300m annually, as part of a wider pullback from international aid. Advocacy groups called on the US to reverse its decision. 'Kennedy claims that Gavi ignored science are entirely false,' nonprofit consumer advocacy organisation Public Citizen wrote in a statement. 'Gavi's recommendations are grounded in global evidence and reviewed by independent experts. His suggestion otherwise fuels the same disinformation that has already led to deadly measles outbreaks and the resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases, including polio.' A longtime vaccine sceptic, Kennedy has upended the US medical establishment since taking office in February. He has raised questions about possible ties between autism and vaccines, though numerous studies have shown there is no link. Earlier this month, Kennedy fired all 17 members of the expert panel on vaccines at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Created 60 years ago, the committee serves as an independent government body to review data and make recommendations about who should get vaccines. Those recommendations, in turn, can affect which vaccines health insurance plans may cover. Of Kennedy's initial eight replacement members, about half have advocated against vaccines. Kennedy's new vaccine advisers hold inaugural meeting The newly revamped committee met for the first time on Wednesday, under intense scrutiny from medical experts worried about Americans' access to lifesaving shots. But already, conflicts are starting to simmer in and around the panel. Ahead of the two-day gathering, government scientists prepared meeting materials calling vaccination 'the best protection' during pregnancy — and said most children hospitalised for COVID-19 over the past year were unvaccinated. That advice, however, conflicts with Kennedy's. The health secretary already announced COVID-19 vaccines will no longer be recommended for healthy children or pregnant women, and his new advisers are not scheduled to vote this week on whether they agree. COVID-19 remains a public health threat, resulting in 32,000 to 51,000 US deaths and more than 250,000 hospitalizations since last fall, according to the CDC. Kennedy's newly reconstituted panel also lost one of its eight members shortly before Wednesday's meeting. Michael Ross, a Virginia-based obstetrician and gynecologist, stepped down from the committee, bringing the panel's number to just seven. The Trump administration said Ross withdrew during a customary review of members' financial holdings. The meeting opened as the American Academy of Pediatrics announced that it will continue publishing its own vaccine schedule for children, but now will do so independently of the ACIP, calling it 'no longer a credible process'. ACIP's recommendations traditionally go to the director of the CDC. Historically, nearly all are accepted and then used by insurance companies in deciding what vaccines to cover. But the CDC currently has no director, so the committee's recommendations have been going to Kennedy, and he has yet to act on a couple of recommendations ACIP made in April. Separately, on Wednesday, Senate hearings began for Trump's nominee for CDC director, Susan Monarez. During the hearings, she said she has not seen evidence linking vaccines and autism and said she would look into the decision to cut Gavi funding. 'I believe the global health security preparedness is a critical and vital activity for the United States,' she said. 'I think that we need to continue to support promotion of utilisation of vaccines.'
