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Alliance News Digest

Week of 14 January 2011

NEWS FROM WHO AND PARTNERS

• Health workforce skill mix and task shifting in low income countries: a review of recent evidence – HRH Journal - (1/11)
  Health workforce needs-based shortages and skill mix imbalances are significant health workforce challenges
• One Year after the Earthquake, Haiti’s Recovery Proceeds Slowly – UNFPA – (01/10)
  A year after the devastating earthquake in Haiti a million people are still living in accomodation sites for the displaced or in makeshift communities without basic services
• Haiti One Year On: a time for thanks and change – Merlin, UK – (01/10)
  Merlin’s Hands Up For Health Workers team release a report starkly highlighting the unintended consequences of the international response.
• PAHO Director: Haiti's Health Workers Were "Heroes" in 2010 – PAHO/WHO. (1/12)
  Haiti's health workers, including staff of PAHO, were in the forefront of rescue efforts during earthquake.

AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST

• TFDA Should Do More (Editorial) - The Citizen, Tanzania – (01/12)
  Authorities need to be proactive in sale and distribution of drugs regulations..
• HIV/Aids - New Training Manual for Traditional Healers - Agência de Informaçao de Moçambique – (01/09)
  The manual contains detailed information about care that both users and practitioners of traditional medicine will have to take into account as a means to prevent infection with HIV virus.
• MSF Calls for Medical Staff's Freedom of Movement to Be Respected - Shabelle Media Network, Somalia – (01/10)
  MSF supervisors at Dinsor hospital, in Somalia, were prevented from leaving the town by representatives of Al Shabaab
• Medical Items Worth Millions Presented - The Daily Observer, Gambia – (01/10)
  The items are intended to support the government in its health system strengthening as well as the work force production
• New Rules to Push Up Cost of Drugs - Daily Nation, Kenya – (01/10)
  Fresh regulations are expected to keep high the cost of access to pharmaceutical products.
• Inadequacy of intensive care beds is a disaster, says IMA - The Jerusalem Post – (01/11)
  Patients being treated in regular wards instead, increasing mortality rate.

ASIA AND PACIFIC

• Pravasi Bharatiya Divas concludes; Overseas Indian doctors ready to help India - The Economic Times, India – (01/09)
  Around 300,000 doctors of Indian origin working abroad announced they are willing to help the Indian government in a variety of ways, a leading Britain-based doctor said
• Need protocol on doctors with foreign degrees, MCI told - Sify News, India – (01/07)
  The government has asked the (MCI) to put in place a protocol that makes it simpler for a doctor with foreign qualification to work in India
• Doctors’ reluctance to work in villages annoys PM - The Daily Star, Bangladesh – (01/06)
  Prime Minister expressed strong dissatisfaction over the unwillingness of physicians to serve in hospitals in remote areas of the country
• To the villagers, rural doctors are superheroes - The Star, Malaysia – (01/09)
  For many villagers living in remote parts of Yunnan, a rural doctor’s medicine box is all the access to health care they will ever have
• House to focus on migrant workers bill - The Jakarta Post – (01/11)
  The House of Representatives has set a goal to pass bills affecting migrant workers and the medical profession and might put off the rest of the drafted laws on their table, a legislator says.
• Quality first, not quantity - The Star, Malaysia – (01/09)
  Questions about the quality of medical education, and by extension, the quality of healthcare patients will be receiving in the future…..
• Our woes are just beginning - The Sydney Morning Herald – (01/13)
  These catastrophic floods have set in motion a series of serious health problems across Queensland.
• Medical training in critical condition - The Sydney Morning Herald – (01/12)
  Broadening the training opportunities for young clinicians will, ultimately, improve the quality of our medical workforce.

NORTH AMERICA

• Mobile Health Apps To Triple By 2012 - Information Week – (01/05)
  Telecom and technology vendors have a significant opportunity in the thriving mHealth market, concludes Pyramid Research study.
• Study: Blacks less likely to have living wills, medical directives - USA Today – (01/06)
  The reason is the discrimination African-Americans have faced from the medical profession in the past
• Tech Beat: 2011 is the year of mobile medical - Times Standard – (01/06)
  Jan. 3 is the official start of the “HITECH”* Medical Stimulus Plan for health care providers and hospitals as part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA).
• HANYS’ Survey Shows Worsening Physician Shortage - Healthcare Association of New York State – (01/07)
  HANYS’ new report shows persistent physician shortages with a projected need for 1,000 physicians reported by 74% of hospitals outside of New York City
• Africa's Epidemic of Disappearing Medicine - Foreign Policy – (01/11)
  The global system for public health donations has a crippling accountability problem
• Evolving primary care - The Boston Globe – (01/10)
  Primary care is becoming the purview of trainees interested in a broad perspective of this system and the desire to improve it
• Health Spending Rose in ’09, but at Low Rate - The New York Times – (01/05)
  As the federal government reported, total national health spending grew by 4 percent in 2009, the slowest rate of increase in 50 years.
• Easing the pressure on the city's ERs - Montreal Gazette – (01/06)
  More than 2 million Quebecers -about 30 per cent of the population -do not have a family doctor to turn to as a first resort
• Canada’s nursing workforce grows 9% in five years - CIHI/ICIS, Canada – (01/09)
  Registered nurse–to-population ratio still lower than in the early 1990s

EUROPE

• Human resources for health in India - The Lancet, UK– (11/01)
  A comprehensive national policy for human resources is needed to achieve universal health care in India
• Czech doctors resign en masse - The Lancet, UK – (01/08)
  Hospitals in the Czech Republic are bracing themselves for service disruptions as thousands of doctors resign in protest over poor working conditions and low pay
• Maternity units teetering on the brink because of baby boom, say midwives - Daily Mail, UK – (01/03)
  Care for new mothers is worsening because midwife numbers have failed to keep pace with the soaring number of births in the UK.
• Charities criticise Haiti earthquake response - Financial Times – (01/09)
  Merlin said that more local health workers involvement would have been preferable to the take over by foreign relief workers lacking the appropriate ground experience at early stages of earthquake
• Bed blocking on the rise as care cuts leave elderly stuck in hospital - The Guardian, UK – (01/04)
  Doctors blame local councils for making it harder for older people to access home help, forcing them to stay in hospital
• What effect has the internet had on healthcare? - The Guardian, UK – (01/09)
  In attempting to identify illnesses online we are undermining the role of the GP
• Trolley numbers have one simple cause: a lack of hospital beds- Irish Times – (01/06)
  A host of initiatives have been announced by the government to try to resolve the problem since 2004, but the steps taken have not worked
• Manque de médecins: 20% de praticiens étrangers de plus en 2010 - Romandie News, CH – (01/09)
  Dans les hôpitaux, le taux de médecins étrangers atteint près de 40%
• Thousands left without doctors in Istanbul, says chamber – Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey – (01/12)
  The Istanbul Medical Chamber says the new family doctor system should be canceled as poorer neighborhoods severely lack doctors and offices

LATIN AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN

• Estamos haciendo historia en materia de salud: Calderón - Milenio, Mexico – (01/06)
  El presidente Felipe Calderón afirmó que, en una década, “se ha duplicado todo lo que se hizo en el siglo XX en materia de cobertura de salud”.
• Decretada la emergencia en el sistema de salud pública del país - El Universo, Ecuador – (01/11)
  El colapso en los hospitales públicos y el incremento del número de pacientes obligó al gobierno a decretar la emergencia por 60 días en el sistema nacional de salud
• Centros de salud: cuanto más lejos, más carencias - Diario de Cuyo, Argentina – (01/09)
  Una recorrida por 10 puestos sanitarios de poblaciones distantes reveló las falencias más repetidas.
• Médicos defendem projeto de validação de diplomas estrangeiros - Ultimo Segundo, Brazil – (01/07)l
  Novo processo estreou em 2010 com apenas dois aprovados entre 628 inscritos. Para conselho médico, projeto deve ser mantido.