Four Million Healthcare Workers Needed Worldwide
The World Health Organizaton is warning of a chronic shortage of healthcare workers especially in sub-Saharan Africa. At least 1.3 billion people worldwide do not have access to any kind of healthcare which means diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and avian influenza will or already are running rampant. This situation has dire consequences for the rest of us in supposedly safe developed countries.
This statistic saddened me:
Sub-Saharan Africa has 11% of the world’s population and 24% of the global burden of disease but only 3% of the world’s health workers.
And not only are there not enough healthcare workers being trained, those who are qualified are leaving for better paying jobs in richer countries. And countries like the UK are accused of poaching staff.
The healthcare system is dependent on more than the number of healthcare workers available. Government corruption and war prevent people from getting the treatment they need. It’s a complicated situation that will demand everyone’s cooperation.
How much longer do we have to wait? And what can we do to change it?
BBC News, April 7, 2006
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April 10, 2006 @ 12:38 am...
I’m fortunate enough to be attending a medical school with a strong ‘grassroots’ interest in Global Health. The topic is even built into our curriculum; one of our courses, “Doctor, Patient and Society” is designed to encourage us to thing about the social determinants of health, among other things.
Despite this climate of international interest, most of my class will stay in Canada. There is a physician shortage here, especially in Rural Family Practice, and some aspects of our program are obviously meant to groom us to practice in this field.
It is possible to combine domestic (Canadian) practice with overseas work. As a medical student with free summers, I actually have much more flexibility than a salaried physician or one who runs their own clinic. The problem is, I have less time and experience to share.
It’s been difficult to find an organization that has a sustainable program of care in a developing country, minimal operational costs (maximal transfer of funding to patient care), and still attempts to uphold the ethics that apply to cross-cultural care. I will be a member of medical trek to the Himalayas that encompasses most of these points, but it is only a start. We will deliver drugs, patient care and education, and learn a lot from the experience. The work I’ll be directly involved with, the physical and mental preparation for which I am documenting on my blog, will only touch about 1300 of those 1.3 billion people without access to care. It still counts.
By no means are these trips a long-term solution. I think in the long term, such initiatives need to focus on the idea of “train the trainer.” This buzzphrase is found with increasingly prevalence in groups interested in global healthcare and education; it means that rather than having an initiative disappear when the foreigners go back home, we should educate those who are part of the local infrastructure to take over a program and make it their own.
However, in the interim, they may help to bridge the gap between the current lack of physicians and the long-term goal of attracting them / retaining them in the areas of most need. I imagine that a program of incentives - especially in Africa - may be part of the answer.
Cheers,
Jessica
April 10, 2006 @ 7:59 am...
Jessica, Thank you so much for both your fabulous comment and your devotion to public health both in your country and in others. With healthcare professionals like you, I feel a little more hopeful that this world will change for the better.