Call to action to resolve health worker crisis

The Forum, held in Kampala, Uganda, and organised by the Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA), mandated the Alliance to monitor progress made on the Agenda and report its findings in 2010. Nearly 1500 participants, including donors, experts and more than 30 ministers of health, education and finance, endorsed the Kampala Declaration and Agenda for Global Action.

“Health workers are the cornerstone of health systems and action is long overdue. This Forum and the Agenda bring much needed attention to the issue,” said World Health Organisation (WHO) Deputy Director-General, Dr Anarfi Asamoa-Baah who spoke at the Forum, which concludes today (Friday).

The agenda calls on all countries to give top priority to training and recruiting sufficient health personnel from within their own country and to provide adequate incentives and better working conditions to ensure the retention of health workers. It calls on international and regional financial institutions to relax constraints such as public health recruitment ceilings, and calls on WHO to accelerate negotiations for a code of practice on the international recruitment of health workers.

“This is about much more than a health issue. It is about political choice. It is about quality of life and the dignity of individuals. Therefore, providing health workers for all is the responsibility of all societies and their governments,” said Dr Francis Omaswa, Executive Director of GHWA, which is based at WHO.

According to WHO, the world needs over 4 million additional health workers, and at least 57 countries around the world suffer from an acute shortage. Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly hard hit with one million health workers needed for this region alone.

Article courtesy of APO-SOURCE : The African News Source