[afro-nets] GHWA welcomes health workforce commitments to reach MDGs

Cross posted from: "[health-vn discussion group]" <health-vn@cairo.anu.edu.au>

Statement: GHWA welcomes health workforce commitments to reach MDGs
http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/news/mdghlm_commitments/en/index.html

FRIDAY 26 SEPTEMBER, 2008 -- The Global Health Workforce Alliance welcomes the pledges of commitment expressed at the United Nations High Level Meeting on the Millennium Development Goals and surrounding events that place resolving the health workforce crisis at the centre of ensuring progress on improving maternal and child health and addressing killer diseases such as malaria.

Significant financial commitments were made to address the health workforce as part of the drive to move closer to the achievement of MDGs 4 and 5 on reducing maternal and child mortality. Commitments included a pledge of £450 million from the UK over the next three years to support national health plans, incorporating training more nurses, midwives and doctors in eight of the poorest countries. Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg announced that the Global Campaign for Health will aim to mobilize an extra $30 billion by 2015 to ensure 4 million more children's lives are saved and 33 million more births are attended by skilled health workers. A new taskforce on Innovative Financing for Health, launched by the UK, Norway, the World Health Organization, the World Bank and others, will help towards funding over 1 million health workers by 2015, and will report to the G8 next year.

Through their commitments in New York, governments, the private sector, the United Nations, the international community and civil society underlined the critical importance of increasing the quality and quantity of health workers to ensure countries are able to address issues of maternal and child mortality, better manage infectious diseases and better prepare for future threats posed by new pandemics, the impacts of climate change and growing burdens of chronic disease.

"The pledges of solid funding show leaders moving beyond words to action - which is critical for progress on the ground," said Executive Director of the Global Health Workforce Alliance Dr Mubashar Sheikh. "We now have concrete promises to massively scale up numbers of health workers. We must work collaboratively, and quickly, to ensure training commences immediately," he said.

The world is facing a critical shortage of more than 4 million health workers, including a lack of at least 1.5 million in Africa. Health workers provide essential, life-saving interventions such as care for pregnant women, safe childbirth, vaccinations and access to services for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

The Global Health Workforce Alliance urges leaders to continue their solid commitment, including keeping the issue high on the agenda of the upcoming follow-up International Conference on Financing for Development to Review the Implementation of the Monterrey Consensus which will be held in Doha, Qatar, at the end of November.

The Alliance partnership will continue to support countries in their responses to the crisis to achieve the goal of access for all to skilled and motivated health workers as part of a functioning health system.

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Vern Weitzel
mailto:vern.weitzel@gmail.com

It is encouraging to see the steps being taken to address the health workforce situation. We should, however, not lose sight of the fact that there are other pieces of the health system that can be a bottleneck to service delivery e.g. making drugs and functioning equipment available at the health facilities. These must also be adequately funded and safeguarded, so that the health workers have something to work with. Where feasible, we should also explore the available information technology to improve the productivity of the staff we have. It is always painful to visit a country that is critically short of health workers and to see the inefficiencies in the support/administrative systems as well as in the processes of delivering care that consume staff time and effort making a bad situation even worse.

Investments in health information systems need to go beyond looking at outputs but should also capture the inputs of staff and expenditures incurred to achieve the outputs. Some fairly simple comparisons between inputs and outputs would begin to draw the attention of health managers to possible inefficiencies that need to be addressed. Public health care is "big business" but many times is sadly run in a rather non-business-like manner. Calls for efficiency measurements, as have been made on this forum by Peter Burgess and others, need to get more attention. All of this means we should look at the solutions to the health worker crisis within the broader context of the health system.

Steve

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Stephen Musau
Health Systems Advisor
Africa's Health in 2010 Project
1875 Connecticut Av, NW
Washington, DC 20009
+1- 202 884 8906
mailto:Stephen_musau@abtassoc.com

Dear STEVE

I totally agree with you that health information is ital for the development of a sound healthy system around the world. TO MY THINKING, it is Very important for health information be provided to the wider array of the would be users-this includes patients, policy makers and implementers, students etc.

I am currently developing a program that will utilise health information for advocacy purpose, so in case you know of any orgnisation which will be ready to collaborate with me , plese let me know.

Thanks for Now

Pantaleon N Shoki (B.A, MSc)
Managing Director
Victoria Research Bureau Ltd
P O Box 1611
Mwanza, Tanzania
Cellular: +255-754-931-799, +255-732-981-281
Web: http://myprofile.cos.com/shoki
mailto:shokipn2000@yahoo.com

Hello

I like what you are trying to develop, it is something that could change the way policies are framed on our continent if well developed and utilized efficiently. One major problem we face in Africa is the public policy process in which a large percentage of the citizenry in different countries do not have an in-put in the policies that are framed their countries.

A project like your could help the voiceless have a voice for once and create a medium through which researchers, experts, and even the civil society can influence the policy frame work of their countries in relation to health.

Please to up-date me on how far you go and we could work together to see the face of our health systems change

Thank you
Ogharanduku Victor
mailto:viogha3@yahoo.com