By James D. Shelton
For more than 20 years, the family planning and reproductive health field has promoted the understanding of the "user perspective,"1 and rightly so. We've learned that in order to have successful programs that serve clients well, we need a better understanding of the people being served. But what of providers? Although providers are obviously essential partners in service programs, their perspectives have received remarkably little attention. That is a major gap. In the early 1990s, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) put forward its seminal work on the "needs of the provider" to complement its "rights of the client."2 But to improve programs further, we need to see the world through the providers' eyes and understand them better. Who are they? How do they see their jobs, their roles and their programs? What are their needs and motivations? What aspects of their work environments challenge them? What is the human dimension of their overall lives, and how can we best enlist their help to improve access to services and the quality of programs?
Human Resources
Urban Institute - August, 2001, Washington, D.C., USA.
A new Urban Institute report on workers without health insurance suggests that the most efficient way to increase coverage is to target subsidies toward low-income workers. The report offers the most detailed picture yet of the uninsured working population—now numbering more than 16 million—and compares the relative merits of two key vehicles for expanding coverage: tax credits or public programs. Researchers Bowen Garrett, Len Nichols and Emily Greenman, characterizes today’s uninsured and examines the policy implications. The report, based on analyses of 1999 Current Population Survey data and a survey of the literature on the working uninsured, was developed for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation as part of its Community Voices: HealthCare for the Underserved initiative series.
DIVISIONS within the African National Congress (ANC), and between the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the SA Communist Party (SACP) over privatisation have been thrown into sharp relief at a top-level meeting called to iron out differences in the alliance on the issue. The meeting came as the ANC tries to head off next month's anti privatisation strike by Cosatu. At the same time it is seeking consensus on the restructuring of state assets in the run-up to a two-day alliance meeting scheduled for August 17- 18.
In a move to curb Xhosa initiate deaths and mutilations the Health Department would employ experienced iincgibi (traditional surgeons) to perform circumcisions said Eastern Cape Health Department spokesperson Mahlubandile Magida yesterday.
UNICEF warned on Monday that child labourers in Mozambique were at a high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and said it would encourage the government to find ways to stop child labour.
A strike by government doctors and nurses crippled state hospital services in the country's main cities on Wednesday, AP reported. Quoting the Hospital Doctors Association, the agency said about 350 doctors stopped work on Tuesday in the cities of Harare, the capital, and Bulawayo, the second city, demanding better salaries and allowances.
Between October 1999 and November 2000, WHO's Department of Health Information Management and Dissemination worked with participants of the Health Information Forum to elaborate ways in which WHO and other health information organizations might work together more effectively to improve access to information for healthcare workers in developing and transitional countries. Based on a series of five structured meetings and a questionnaire survey of health information organizations, the following document from the WHO-HIF collaboration is intended as a basis for the cooperative development of needs-driven action plans in each of six priority areas. Proceedings of meetings and survey reports are available at http://www.inasp.org.uk.
The National Economic Development and Labour Council's (Nedlac) standing committee on Friday met representatives of the Congress of SA Trade Unions and the Department of Public Enterprises on Cosatu's notice of possible protest action against privatisation. Last week Cosatu notified Nedlac that it was planning mass action in protest against the privatisation of state assets.
Over three million children die from diarrhoea every year in developing countries and a third of the world's population is infected with parasitic worms. Simple improvements in hygiene could drastically cut infection rates. But what is the best way to develop hygiene promotion programmes? How can health promoters identify target populations and risk factors?
The confrontation that ensued between health workers in Livingstone and the provincial health directorate in Southern Province over the withdrawal of labour has now been resolved. The matter concerned the disciplinary letters which were handed to striking workers while the Civil Servants Union of Zambia (CSUZ) was concluding negotiations with Government.