PHM-Exch> International recruitment of health personnel: WHO code of practice will be send to 63rd WHA for approval

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Thomas Schwarz, Medicus Mundi International schwarz at medicusmundi.org

International recruitment of health personnel: WHO code of practice will be
send to 63rd WHA for approval
*
Basel and Geneva, 21 January 2010 | The issue of health workforce migration
was yesterday on the agenda of the WHO Executive Board: The Board discussed
the revised draft code of practice and agreed to submit it to the
Sixty-third World Health Assembly, in May 2010.*

Migration of health personnel has been increasing worldwide over the past
decades, especially from lower income countries whose health systems are
already very fragile. To address this situation, the World Health Assembly
adopted resolutions which called for the development of a Code of Practice
on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel. In January 2009, the
WHO Executive Board discussed a first draft of a Code of Practice, but
requested further consultation among Member States, including through
discussion by regional committees. Since then, all six regional WHO
committees discussed the key issues related to the Code of Practice. The
Medicus Mundi International Network submitted a statement to the meeting of
the European WHO committee in September 2009. Since then, the WHO revised
the code.

..........
*A stronger code*

In its report to the WHO Executive Board, the WHO Secretariat pointed out
that the revised draft was stronger than the previous one:

*"Two core themes identified by the regional committees and incorporated in
the revised draft code were that Member States should strive to achieve a
balance between the rights, obligations and expectations of source
countries, destination countries and migrant health personnel, and that
international health worker migration should have a net positive impact on
the health system of developing countries and countries with economies in
transition. To this end, Article 5 on mutuality of benefits has been
strengthened. The revised draft text emphasizes that international health
personnel should be recruited in a way that seeks to prevent a drain on
valuable human resources for health.*
**
*In accordance with the views expressed by some regional committees, it also
recommends that countries should abstain from active international
recruitment of health personnel unless equitable bilateral, regional, or
multilateral agreement(s) exist to support such recruitment activities.*
**
*In addition, voluntary technical and financial mechanisms to strengthen the
development of health systems in developing countries and countries with
economies in transition are proposed in Article 11.*
**
*The revised draft code also recommends that Member States should seek to
strengthen the balance between the rights of health personnel to leave their
countries and the right of everybody to the enjoyment of the highest
attainable standard of health in order to mitigate the negative effects of
migration on health systems.*
**
*In accordance with the discussion in some regional committees, the revised
draft code also recommends strengthening the provision on
self-sustainability by stating that Member States should, to the extent
possible, strive to meet their health personnel needs from their own health
workforce. In order to make national health workforces sustainable, the
revised draft code includes new provisions recommending that Member States
consider a variety of measures to retain health workers."*

..........
*Civil society organizations welcomed the new draft*

The Medicus Mundi International Network (MMI) is a member of the Health
Workforce Advocacy Initiative (HWAI), an international civil society-led
coalition that works to support and strengthen human resources for health.
In a letter to  the MMI Executive Board, HWAI welcomed the new draft of the
Code, urging the Executive Board to submit it to the 63rd World Health
Assembly in May 2010.

..........
*MMI statement to the WHO Executive Board:
"Bring the Code to the 63rd World Health Assembly!" *

As an NGO in official relations with the WHO, the Medicus Mundi
International Network was invited to appoint a representative to the WHO
Executive Board meeting. In her statement to the WHO Executive Board, the
MMI representative Anke Tijtsma (Wemos, The Netherlands) welcomed the
improvements made in this revised version of the Code: The amendments made
have strengthened this vital document. The MMI Network especially welcomed
the emphasis on the roles and responsibilities of destination countries in
tackling the HRH crisis.

Nevertheless, the representative of the Medicus Mundi International Network
raised several issues that would further strengthen the ability of State and
non-State actors to adhere to the Code and enhance its overall impact.

The MMI representative concluded that it might be hard to reach consensus on
the text of the Code. However, MMI urged the Executive Board to submit the
Code to the 63rd World Health Assembly and to ensure that it will benefit
the nations and their people who would suffer from a limited Code, which
would result in weakened health systems unable to meet local need.

..........
*The Code will be send to 63rd WHA for approval*

Our representative Anke Tijtsma reported from the meeting that after a
rather brief session on this agenda item with interventions of just over 20
Member States it was initially left open how to proceed. Suggestion were
made to start a web-based consultation on the text of the Code. Fortunately,
there were a number of delegations opposed to any further consultation as
that would (according to e.g. Brazil, Paraguay and Zimbabwe) lead again to
new rounds of debate without major improvements. The chair mentioned that
the Code could be seen as a dynamic text! WHO DG Margaret Chan concluded
that the whole process already took around six years, so it was time to stop
more consultation, as most interventions made were suggesting to send it to
the next WHA for approval. Dr Chan proposed to continue to collect
suggestions and ideas for revision of the text so that Member states could
still make their comments. These would then be collected but not
incorporated into the text in this phase. The agenda item was finalised just
after 18h in the evening.

Find all related documents on
http://www.medicusmundi.org/en/contributions/news/2009/WHO_EB126_on_code_of_practice
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