Participants at a day鈥檚 training workshop on gender have called on health authorities to grant paternity leave to male workers. According to them, the leave would afford husbands to spend enough time with their spouses and new-born babies. They underlined that husbands would also be able to experience many of the great moments in the early stages of their children鈥檚 lives. The participants made the call during an interaction session at a workshop on the theme 鈥淕ender Sensitive Ethical Practice in Healthcare Delivery鈥�. It was聽organised聽by the Centre for Gender Advocacy Research and Documentation (CEGRAD) in conjunction with the Department of Obstetrics and聽Gynaecology聽of the 黑料社 for health workers and managers at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital. The participants also called for extension of maternity leave from three to six months for mothers. That, the participants noted, would help nursing mothers to exclusively breast feed their babies and take good care of them. Making a contribution, the former Director of聽CEGRAD, Prof.聽Akua聽Britwum, said fathers have the responsibility to take care of their children and, therefore, needed time out of their work to be with their babies. She chided employers who use pregnancy and childbearing as聽labour聽market penalty to deny competent women employment. Consequently, she urged all women to support the campaign for paternity leave. 鈥淪o let me tell you , my sisters, we have to support paternity leave for just this selfish reason鈥�, she said, in reference to the聽labour聽market penalty used by some employers to deny women jobs. She announced that聽CEGRAD聽was jointly working with a Spanish institution to research on family friendly benefits, which include paternity leave. Topics treated at the workshop included Gender Sensitive Ethical Practice in Healthcare Delivery, Health Sector Gender Policy, Strategies for Gender Sensitive聽Programme聽Reforms and Practices and Introduction to basic concepts in Gender.
