More disgruntled Zimbabwean government employees have joined striking doctors and nurses to demand higher salaries as the economy continues to rumble. Lecturers at the country's eight state-owned educational institutions have become the third group of employees - after doctors and power utility workers - to take industrial action this year. Government awarded civil servants across the board a 300 percent salary increase, but this was rejected as too low.
Human Resources
More Zimbabwe government workers join strike over poor pay
Integrated Regional Information Network, 23 January 2007
Mozambique: HIV/AIDS carers to be taught ARV management
Integrated Regional Information Network, 16 January 2007
The Mozambican Red Cross will begin training hundreds of volunteer workers to manage antiretroviral therapy (ART) for people in their care living with HIV/AIDS. "This training is extremely important and will improve the work of our carers," Paula Macava, the Red Cross Mozambique coordinator of the HIV/AIDS programme, told IRIN. "We have now finalised an eight-module training package on antiretroviral therapy management, specifically designed for carers."
The impact of Public Sector Reforms on Public Sector Workers
Lethbridge J: Public Services International Research Unit, 2006
This paper presents some initial findings from a survey of public sector workers, in a number of countries in Europe, Africa, North America, Latin America and Asia, and how they have been affected by policies of liberalisation in relation to wages, working conditions and other forms of socio-economic security. This survey was a joint initiative between the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Public Services International (PSI), an international trade union. The aim of the survey was to explore three themes: workers’ socio-economic security; quality and accessibility of public services; and relations between government, foreign and domestic capital, trade unions and civil society.
400 new Kenyan doctors to be sent home
Mwaniki M, Siringi S: Nation Media
Some 400 newly qualified doctors in public hospitals are reported to be facing dismissal in December. This media report outlines the proposed measure which ends the automatic employment of interns due to budgetary retraints, to make way for incoming interns. While a share of these doctors may be rehired in the annual advertisement of positions this is reported to no longer be automatic.
Further details: /newsletter/id/32016
Expanding access to priority health interventions: The human resources challenge
Kurowski C, Wyss K, Abdulla S, Yémadji ND: Health Economics and Finance Programme, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Endorsing the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the international community committed itself to significant improvements in the health of the poor and set ambitious targets. Achieving the MDG will depend on improving access to priority health interventions, which requires significant supply and demand side constraints to be overcome. The study investigated the human resource implications of expanding the coverage of priority health interventions in Tanzania and Chad. The authors conclude that the health workforce in Tanzania and Chad, and probably in many other SSA countries, is grossly insufficient for the expansion of priority interventions envisaged in current international dialogue. An immediate response at the national and international level is required to ensure progress towards the MDG.
Management of expatriate medical assistance in Mozambique
Vio F: Human Resources for Health 4:26, 2 December 2006
This paper discusses how Mozambique coped with the health system needs in terms of specialised doctors since independence, in a troubled context of war, lack of financial resources and modifying settings of foreign aid. Different scenarios, partnerships and contract schemes that have evolved since independence are briefly described, as well as self-reliance option possibility and implications. Lessons learned about donor initiatives aimed at contracting specialists from other developing countries are singled out. The issue of obtaining expertise and knowledge in the global market as cheap as possible is stressed, and realistic figures of cost planning are highlighted, as determined by the overall health system necessities and budget limitations.
Rising to the challenges of human resources for health in Kenya: Developing empirical evidence for policy making
Chankova S, Kombe G, Muchiri S, et al: United States Agency for International Development (USAID), July 2006
This report presents a comprehensive analysis of the human resources for health (HRH) currently available and required to reach the targets set by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in both the public sector and the faith-based organisations (FBOs) in Kenya. A stratified convenience sample of health facilities at all levels of care in each of the eight provinces was selected for the assessment. A sample of Ministry of Health and FBO health facilities at all levels of service in each of the eight provinces was selected for the assessment. Conclusions include that the geographical distribution of skilled HRH in Kenya is heavily skewed towards urban areas; and substantial annual growth rates (across all staff categories) are needed to meet the future requirements.
Swaziland nurses flee the HIV/AIDS frontline
The Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), 11 December 2006
"Swaziland is dying. Will the last nurse on duty please turn off the lights?" reads a handwritten note at a clinic in Manzini, the country's AIDS-hit commercial centre, 35km southeast of the capital, Mbabane. The wry note disguises the pain of Swaziland's diminishing number of nurses and hints at the reason why their colleagues have fled the country to offer their services elsewhere.
World AIDS Day: Medical professionals speak out for their colleagues in Africa
Physicians for Human Rights
On World AIDS Day, Physicians for Human Rights sent a letter to President Bush urging the US government to address the massive health worker shortage in Africa. An estimated one million additional health workers are needed in sub-Saharan Africa alone to fight AIDS and other diseases. The letter was signed by over 100 prominent US health professionals, including 33 deans of medical, nursing, and public health schools, representing some of the country's most influential health leaders. Many of these health experts have seen first-hand the devastation caused by the lack of health workers, medicines, and supplies in many African countries struggling with the AIDS pandemic.
Challenges to HIV prevention in psychiatric settings: Perceptions of South African mental health care providers
Collins PY: Soc Sci Med 63 (4): 979-90, August 2006
Mental health services in South Africa increasingly feel the brunt of the AIDS epidemic. Despite the high prevalence of infection in the psychiatric setting, HIV risk reduction interventions targeting South Africans with psychiatric illness remain few and far between. The attitudes of mental health care providers about sexual relations and HIV among people with mental illness continue to influence the extent to which these issues are addressed in care settings. This study examines these attitudes through the use of a semi-structured interview administered to 46 mental health care providers in four provinces of South Africa. I found that personal, contextual and political factors in the clinic and the hospital create barriers to integrating prevention activities. In particular, providers face at least three challenges to intervening in the epidemic among their patients: their own views of psychiatric illness, the transitions occurring in the mental health care system, and shifting social attitudes toward sexuality. Barriers operate at the individual level, the institutional level, and the societal level. At the individual level providers' perceptions of psychiatric symptoms shape their outlook on intervention with psychiatric patients. At the institutional level disruptive transitions in service delivery relegate HIV services to lesser importance. At the societal level, personal beliefs about sexuality and mental illness have remained slow to change despite major political changes. Minimizing barriers to implementing HIV prevention services requires institutional and health care policies that ensure adequate resources for treating people with mental illness and for staff development and support.