4 million health workers needed in developing world
Recruitment of foreign healthcare workers by public and private employers in the UK and other rich countries is undermining efforts to fight disease in the developing world, a senior World Health Organisation official has warned.
In 2000, numerous African leaders signed the Abuja Declaration, a pact to combat malaria. The agreement called for 15 percent of every countrys budget to be directed toward improving health care – yet most countries that signed it spend less than 10 percent.
That means low wages and low morale for health-care workers – and, ultimately, a loss of medical personnel. Recently, the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwifes said over 300.000 nurses are needed to fill positions in the nation’s hospitals and clinics.
Mubashar Sheikh, the newly appointed head of the Global Health Workforce Alliance, designed to tackle the shortage of qualified health workers in poorer countries, said that the UKs code of conduct for example to limit recruitment of nurses, doctors and other staff from developing countries into the National Health Service “did not go far enough” and was “not up to expectations”.
His comments highlight the difficulties in making good an estimated shortfall in developing countries of more than 4 million healthcare workers against a backdrop of strong demand and higher wages luring them to migrate to richer countries.
He stressed that donors had in recent months started to pay greater attention to trying to limit such negative effects, with a desire to strengthen health systems more generally being shown in new policies from the UN-backed Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunisation, the Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and Malaria, and the US administrations Pepfar programme for Aids relief.
He said he also detected greater flexibility from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which have long been criticised for imposing caps on developing countries as a condition for support, which limited the recruitment of additional required healthcare employees.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
