Gender inequality continues to affect access to palliative care, with men and women facing different barriers to support. In October 2024, we launched new projects across four counties to address these disparities by improving awareness, reducing stigma, and ensuring gender-specific quality of care for all, including carers.
One of these projects is taking place in Machakos County, where our new initiative is helping more men access the care they need at the end of life. Traditionally, men are less likely to seek help for health problems or talk openly about serious illness. This project aims to change that by integrating palliative care into men’s health services and encouraging local male leaders to speak up for compassionate care.
Through awareness sessions led by the Palliative Care Unit at Machakos Level 5 Hospital, male community leaders are learning how they can play a role in breaking stigma, challenging harmful gender norms, and encouraging others to seek support. So far, 98 community leaders have been reached and 80 men in local men’s groups have been engaged to help mobilise health-seeking behaviour and offer peer support.
To further strengthen this work, 119 healthcare workers have been trained in gender-sensitive palliative care to better integrate palliative support into men’s general health services. The training explored how men and women experience different barriers to accessing care: while women may delay seeking help due to caregiving responsibilities, low autonomy or financial dependence, men often avoid care because of stigma, perceptions of weakness, and traditional masculinity norms. The sessions also focused on building gender-responsive referral systems, embedding palliative care into primary care services, and advocating for policy changes to address systemic inequalities.
Together, these efforts have driven an increase in men registered with the palliative care unit and receiving appropriate care to 100, and are helping to create a more inclusive, compassionate health system – one where both men and women can receive the palliative care they need.
To support our work to address inequalities in access to palliative care please donate today.