PHA-Exchange> NEW UN-BACKED ALLIANCE SEEKS TO REVERSE WORLDWIDE DOCTOR, HEALTH WORKER SHORTAGE

[claudio at hcmc.netnam.vn]

from Vern Weitzel <vern.weitzel at undp.org> -----

NEW UN-BACKED ALLIANCE SEEKS TO REVERSE WORLDWIDE DOCTOR, HEALTH WORKER 
SHORTAGE
New York, May 25 2006  2:00PM
A new United Nations-backed global partnership to address the worldwide 
shortage of nurses, doctors, 
midwives and other health workers was launched today, drawing together key 
partners to help 
countries improve the way they plan for, educate and employ health workers.

“The inadequacy of the health workforce in many developing countries is a 
major obstacle to 
providing essential life-saving health services to millions of people who lack 
access now,” UN World 
Health Organization 
(<"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr26/en/index.html">WHO) 
Assistant Director-General Timothy Evans said of the Global Health Workforce 
Alliance. “Coordinated 
action to address this crisis at the global level, in regions and within 
countries must begin now.”

Fifty-seven countries, 36 of them in sub-Saharan Africa, have severe shortages 
and more than 4 
million additional doctors, nurses, midwives, managers and public health 
workers are urgently needed 
to fill this gap.

Responding to calls by African Heads of State, the G8 industrialized countries 
and the World Health 
Assembly for urgent solutions to the health workforce crisis, the Alliance, 
whose secretariat will 
be hosted by WHO, will seek practical approaches such as improving working 
conditions and reaching 
more effective agreements to manage the migration of health workers.

An adequate health workforce is defined by WHO as at least 2.3 well-trained 
health care providers 
available per 1,000 people and balanced in such a way as to reach 80 per cent 
of the population or 
more with skilled birth attendance and childhood immunization.

The Alliance will start an ambitious programme – the Fast Track Training 
Initiative – to quickly 
increase the number of qualified workers by mobilizing direct financial 
support for training 
institutions, setting up partnerships between schools in industrialized and 
developing countries for 
exchanges of faculty and students, and nurturing academic leaders in 
developing countries with the 
support of experts from around the world.

“The Global Health Workforce Alliance will bring together all the 
stakeholders needed to move 
forward on this plan with a view to sharing evidence-based practices countries 
can follow to expand 
their workforces and make them more effective,” said Lincoln Chen, WHO 
Special Envoy for Human 
Resources for Health and Chair of the Alliance's Board.

The initial partners include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Canadian 
International 
Development Agency, the European Commission, the Global Alliance for Vaccines 
and Immunization, the 
Global Equity Initiative at Harvard University, the International Council of 
Nurses, the New 
Partnership for Africa’s Development, the Norwegian Agency for Development 
Cooperation, the Thai 
Ministry of Public Health, Physicians for Human Rights, the World Bank and WHO.

Its executive director, Francis Omaswa, is the former Director General of 
Health Services of Uganda. 
The Government of Norway has donated $3.5 million towards the Alliance’s 
operations during its first 
year. Seed money for its start-up was donated by the governments of Canada, 
Ireland and Sweden.


------------------------------------------------------------------
This mail sent through Netnam-HCMC ISP: http://www.hcmc.netnam.vn/