THE Fifth Global Forum on Human Resources for Health which kicked yesterday in Geneva, Switzerland, amplified calls for increased investment towards developing and recruiting more healthcare workers in the face of an impending global human resource catastrophe.
By Michael Gwarisa
According to World Health Organization (WHO) Director General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, severe disruptions to health systems have led to excess mortality and avoidable deaths in many countries, reversing previous improvements in healthy lives and well-being and the single largest cause of disrupted health services during the pandemic was the shortage of health workers.
And the single largest barrier to delivering vaccines and other life-saving tools to combat COVID-19 was the shortage of health workers. As my colleague Dr Mike Ryan has said countless times, it’s pointless having stuff or tools if you don’t have staff. These shortages are a global challenge.
“The poorest nations have as little as one tenth of the health workers of the richest ones. Even high-income countries struggle with national shortages.Globally, we estimate a projected shortage of ten million health workers by 2030,” said Dr Tedros.
He said while this is a substantial improvement on the shortfall of 18 million WHO had projected in 2016, it is still far too many, and in some parts of the world – Africa, the Middle East, and Small Island Developing States – progress was stagnating.
“But high-income countries are not immune. Here in Switzerland, a report last year found a potential shortage of forty-five thousand health workers in the coming years. Two weeks ago, Romania hosted 50 of the 53 countries in the WHO European region to discuss the same challenge. The Bucharest Declaration from that meeting underlined the need to address regional shortages through better education, recruitment, and retention.”
He added that shortages result in additional pressure on existing workers, creating stress at work and affecting both physical and mental health.
“Since the onset of COVID-19, more than one in three health and care workers have suffered from anxiety and depression. Around half have experienced burnout. Workers are giving voice to their struggle. Strikes and industrial action are at record levels: dissatisfaction with working conditions is reported in more than 160 countries. We face major challenges that demand a major response,” he said.
The ongoing conference is focusing on three key themes: protect, invest, together, as our moderator outlined earlier.
“First, we call on all countries to protect all health and care workers from violence and discrimination; to protect their labour rights; and to protect them with safe and decent working conditions. Second, we call on all countries to invest in health and care workers; specifically in decent working conditions, fair pay, and training and leadership.”
To address shortages, Dr Tedros said there is need to address the supply issue, by learning from each other about how to develop and implement innovative models of education.
“Investments in education must be matched to jobs and careers, with the right salaries and incentives. In many countries, and particularly the poorest ones, the main driver of shortages is insufficient resources to create jobs and pay wages. Those new jobs must focus on primary health care and public health. And we must particularly address the role of women, who account for two-thirds of the health and care workforce. Too few women are in senior positions in the health sector, and there is a 24% gender pay gap. The glass ceiling must be smashed.”
He said there is need to act together as one and protecting and investing in health and care workers is not a job for Ministries of Health alone.
