Global Health Solutions Begins with Health Workers
06/15/2010
IntraHealth President and CEO Pape Gaye blogs from the Global Health Council conference
I am surrounded by the buzz of the 37th Annual International Conference on Global Health, which kicked off in Washington, DC, yesterday. Here in the Omni Shoreham Hotel, we are far from the realities of so many people's lives all over the globe:
•Sleeping under a bednet every night to protect yourself from a potentially deadly malaria infection
•Walking miles to the closest clinic to get contraceptives or other basic health care
•Worrying about how to get your daughter, wife, or neighbor the emergency care she needs if she experiences difficult or prolonged labor in childbirth.
In many cases, we have solutions to these problems that people face every day. We have technology to effectively prevent and treat malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS. We know how to give couples the information they need to plan whether and when to get pregnant and to prepare for safely giving birth to healthy babies. Yet, for too many, basic health care is still out of reach either because it is too expensive or inaccessible, or both. We, as a global health community, have reached a critical juncture. Health workers-community health educators, medical assistants, nurses, midwives, doctors, and others-are the lifeblood of any health care system, and key to improving the realities of people's lives. It is their commitment and concern, knowledge and dedication that will bring about lasting change in their communities.
Today, there is a shortage of more than four million health workers. The effect of these missing workers is exponential, when you consider how many lives a health worker touches every day. As I walk around the conference this week, listening and participating in presentations and discussions and meeting with other global health leaders from around the world, in the back of my mind I am thinking of the ‘how' in all of this. The ‘how' of improving people's lives and health around the world depends on health workers and the systems in which they work. It is IntraHealth's commitment, and my own, to create the tools and support needed to appropriately train, motivate, and fairly compensate health workers everywhere.
Read more on the IntraHealth blog.
Pape Gaye is the President and CEO of IntraHealth International.
Yes,the issues are rightey pointed out and ‘how’ is the real concern in the health delivery system.
— Vijaya Mahajan on 2010-06-25
Train and deploy community health workers who are trusted where they work.
Train them to diagnose and treat symptomatic syndromes using technology-free and low-technology clinical diagnostic and treatment algorithms that already exist and are designed for this purpose.
Doing so offers a much greater likelihood for achieving outcomes that matter instead of relying on doctors and nurses to do the bulk of the work and who leave places where they are most needed.
— Barry Farkas MD MPH FAAFP on 2010-06-25
...agree that workforce is at the heart of the problem. A growing desire exists amongst US resident physicians in training to actively participate in helping to grow this workforce to create sustainable systems and centers of excellence in the areas of greatest need. This is just the tip of the “interest” iceberg…....
— R. Jense on 2010-06-25
Two questions:
Is health care a charity and no profit sector in poor countries?
Why health care professionals should be among the poor and should volunteer?
The axiom is: someone should sacrifice and these people are health care professionals.
The question is: why? It simply does not work.
Poor people do not produce and do not move health care and do not serve poor communities. they are looking for resources to survive.
Anybody who can answer these questions will resolve health care crisis.
Thank you for your attention.
— Tatiana on 2010-06-25
Healthcare is not a charity but in poor community like mine it should be charity to some extent.To assist the poor and downtrodden in my community l introduced a monthly free medical checkup in August 2009 and also distribute free medication.This program gives them access to medical informations and the opportunity to educate them on the need for regular checkup to detect early preventable diseases eg hypertension,diabetes,Hepatitis breast lumps and need for pre and post natl clinics. So far we have rendered free service to my community. Now we attend to over 500 people monthly.This l believe is one way to assist the poor o (intervention mobilisation and advocacy)
— olurotimi onabolu on 2010-06-27
Answer to these questions, in developing country like India the health care delivery system is state’s responsibility. So, there are various issues such as education, misconceptions, superstitions, implementing system, infrastructure and so on. So need is to work on various levels.
— Vijaya Mahajan on 2010-06-28
I believe that majority will answer: it should be a charity. If so, it suggests no continuity,no quality and no public health outcomes. I do not know any charity program, even emergency with good results. Doctors and nurses are not nuns. Even Jesus selected his patients for assistance. If health care is a business, let’s treat it as such. Poor population can have basic minimal needs coverage and charity coverage but cannot have quality health care. The outcomes will be obvious - high mortality and morbidity. The main problem - is poverty. There is no health care for poor even in US.
— Tatiana on 2010-06-28
I agree with Pape Gaye that health workers need to be well trained, committed and fairly compensated. A key missing link for supporting the front line health workers is the health leaders and managers who also need to be skilled, committed and supported. Our surveys show that many people engage in “magical thinking” just assuming that doctors and nurses automatically know how to lead well and manage but the doctors and nurses tell us that they need preparation to succeed in these roles.
— Joseph Dwyer on 2010-06-28
The concerns should not be restricted to ensuring the availability of health workers (especially in remote/rural areas) i.e. the quantity, but also to ensure that they remain sufficiently motivated to provide quality services. Way too often, the issue of health worker shortage has been addressed with stop gap solutions lacking sustainability and lackadaisical to the desires and needs of the health worker.
— Indrajit Hazarika MD MPH on 2010-06-28
i think health workers we should leave emergency malaria interventions such as bed nets to social workers and we go on with interventions that we impact the source of malaria
Many thanks
Magala
— Magala John H enry on 2010-06-29
The question is still opened should health care workers do charity work as nuns do? Is it Utopian thinking?
the answers to engage social workers or not medical professionals are great but this is the way to substandard health care for poor. Rich people will have health care workers attention and technology and poor will have what is affordable - social workers, community workers NGOs workers - non medical professionals. The answer is clear for me -medical doctors are not going to treat poor as volunteers or nun. So what we are going to do about this situation?
— Tatiana on 2010-07-02