P&G Health India hosts “Women in Healthcare” Summit to encourage women to join pharma and healthcare sectors

Aligned to its commitment to equality and inclusion, Procter & Gamble Health announced its first “Women in Healthcare” Summit, bringing together nearly 1,000 students from across 14 pharmacy colleges to learn from a discussion on opportunities and careers in healthcare with eminent women leaders and the P&G Health Leadership Team, a company statement notified.

In the statement, Milind Thatte, Managing Director, P&G Health India, said, “Statistics show that the average representation of women in sales is relatively low, in the healthcare industry. At P&G Health, we are committed to foster a culture of equality and inclusion in the company which also extends to our work in the industry. It is our constant endeavour to ensure we provide equal opportunities at the workplace. The ‘Women in Healthcare’ Summit is an effort towards this initiative. Through the newly instituted ‘P&G Scholarship Programme,’ we will also be providing an opportunity to deserving girl students, thereby facilitating their choice of careers in the sector.”

Eminent women healthcare leaders from the industry covered a wide range of topics ranging from Breaking the Bias to sharing their experiences at the workplace under the section, My Story, added the statement.

It also said that the engagement with the participating pharmacy colleges began with a competition inviting participants to share innovative and implementable solutions for some real-world challenges that either prevent women from joining the workforce or limit their career growth in the pharma and healthcare sectors such as access to health and hygiene resources on the go, physical safety, psychological safety, etc.

Five students from the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Ahmedabad, and two from Vivekanand Education Society’s College of Pharmacy won awards for their novel ideas, the statement further added.

In addition to facilitating discussions and perspective sharing on careers in healthcare at the summit, P&G Health also announced a scholarship programme for deserving women pursuing pharma courses in partnership with the Centre for Civil Society. Apart from providing financial support to deserving students from participating colleges, this scholarship will also provide for mentoring opportunities to high-potential students to help them build rewarding careers in the sector, the statement concluded.