Subnavigation

• Global Health Workforce Alliance
• About the Alliance
• Members & partners
• Country responses
• Knowledge centre
• Media centre
• Forums

Alliance News Digest

Week of 18 February 2011

NEWS FROM WHO AND PARTNERS

• Recent trends in human resources for health at the district level in Indonesia: evidence from 3 districts in Java – HRH Journal – (2/13)
  Study: Need for improved information on human resources for health in Indonesia at the district level, where programs are actually delivered.
• Promoting safe motherhood in Kenya - Merlin, UK – (2/15)
  Merlin runs primary health care, nutrition, sanitation, hygiene promotion and reproductive health programmes, reaching more than 280,000 people across the Turkana region.
• From South Sudan to Thailand: Merlin health worker's journey to the Global Forum on Health Workforce – Merlin, UK – (2/10)
  For Merlin health worker Miatta Gbanya, the Forum’s Special Recognition Award has been an opportunity to tell the story of health workers in crisis countries.
• Tracking and monitoring the health workforce: a new human resources information system (HRIS) in Uganda – HRH Journal – (2/17)
  Health workforce planning is important in ensuring that the recruitment, training and deployment of health workers are conducted in the most efficient way possible
• A national survey of 'inactive' physicians in the United States of America: enticements to reentry – HRH Journal – (2/17)
  Physicians leaving and reentering clinical practice can have significant medical workforce implications

AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST

• Govt embarks on plan to boost health services - The Citizen, Tanzania – (2/09)
  The government has been implementing a ten-year programme to bring basic health services close to the people through providing health facilities
• Donor Funding Withdrawal Retrogressive-RDAZ - Times of Zambia – (2/15)
  Withdrawing of funding by some donors following allegations of corruption at the ministry in 2010, had devastating effects on ordinary Zambians..
• In Sierra Leone, Patients Complain Doctors’ Neglect - Awareness Times, Sierra Leone – (2/09)
  Investigations conducted in the country’s main referral hospitals, indicate that patients continue to die not because of unavailability of drugs but as a result of the negligence of the doctors and nurses.
• Government seeks to upgrade professional competence of health workers – GhanaWeb – (2/11)
  The country's universities have been keen on initiating training programmes for health professionals across board aimed at injecting competency, professionalism and motivation in the work.
• Government partners doctors in Diaspora - Next, Nigeria – (2/15)
  The Federal Government signed a memorandum of understanding with Nigerian doctors abroad for improved health in the country.
• Doctor safety still a challenge – body - News24, SA – (2/16)
  In the past few years, doctors at hospitals raised security concerns after several doctors were raped while on duty.
• Doctors’ strike: When will peace return to Lagos hospitals? - Nigerian Tribune – (2/16)
  According to the doctors, the state government had reneged on an agreement jointly signed by both parties last year.
• Médecins du Monde expulsé du Darfour - Afrique en ligne – (2/16)
  Le Soudan les accuse de fournir à un groupe rebelle des équipements de communication et des médicaments et de produire de faux rapports sur des cas de viol dans la région.
• Hospitals to be upgraded as training centres - The Gulf Today, UAE – (2/15)
  The decision comes in the wake of increasing number of students appearing for practical lessons on the latest scientific developments.
• Les sages-femmes se recyclent pour plus de performance dans la lutte contre le VIH/Sida – Gabonews – (2/11)
  Ce séminaire va donner la possibilité aux matrones du Gabon de mieux cerner les différents contours de la problématique de la PTME

ASIA AND PACIFIC

• SDF medical staff to get specialist training boost - The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan – (2/11)
  The Defense Ministry has decided to expand a training program for improving the specialist capabilities of SDF doctors and nurses who will be dispatched abroad as members of an international disaster relief team
• Acute shortage of nurses calls for improved management - Global Times, China – (2/10)
  The crying demand for nurses in China has triggered nationwide concern over the low pay and poor management of nurses.
• For better managed hospitals (Editorial) - The Daily Star, Bangladesh – (2/13)
  Conditions of most of the public hospitals in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country are far from satisfactory.
• Revamp medical education (Editorial) - City Journal, India – (2/13)
  Teaching medicine is now dominantly based on high tech gadgetry-based investigative methods, which is far from the realities of India.
• Patients remain unattended at government hospitals for hours - Business Recorder, Pakistan – (2/11)
  A visit to various government hospitals shows that the agony and pain of patients does not move the medical and paramedical staff and they remain unattended for hours.
• Public health services in line for a shake-up- Bangkok Post – (2/15)
  Does the universal health care scheme provide better medical services than the Social Security Fund?
• Doctor shortage reaches 'crisis' level - New Zealand Herald – (2/17)
  The flow of New Zealand doctors overseas and difficulty of replacing them had put many hospitals in crisis, expert says.
• Uphill battle for young lives - The Sydney Morning Herald – (2/12)
  A dedicated band of women led by Australian Colleen Westaway tends to the needs of pregnant and child-rearing Papua New Guinea women.

NORTH AMERICA

• Villages Without Doctors - The New York Times – (2/14)
  But are doctors and nurses necessary to improve rural health? Two very successful programs in desperately poor parts of India’s Maharashtra state say no.
• Caregivers of wounded troops still waiting for benefits signed into law by Obama - The Washington Post – (2/14)
  Nine months after Obama authorized a broad expansion of benefits for people overseeing the convalescence of wounded troops, none of the assistance has materialized.
• Obama starts drive for medical malpractice reforms - The Washington Post – (2/15)
  President Obama is launching a drive to overhaul state medical malpractice laws and cut down on wasteful tests doctors perform because they fear lawsuits.
• 4 Models for Hospital Medicine - Health Leaders Media – (2/13)
  With a physician shortage, there’s a growing need for more physicians and a body of evidence suggesting hospital medicine physicians could be a great source of revenue for those short any doctors.
• Survey: Use of Temporary Physicians Rising, According to Staff Care - PR Newswire – (2/16)
  The primary reason hospitals and medical groups use temporary doctors, is to fill in until a permanent doctor can be found.
• Fear of Lawsuits May Be Leading to Extra Medical Tests - Bloomberg Business Week – (2/15)
  Medical imaging tests are often ordered by doctors to protect themselves against a lawsuit, a new study suggests.
• ENA Offers Toolkit to Help EDs Counter Violence Against Nurses - Nurse.com – (2/16)
  The Toolkit is an online resource for developing and implementing a comprehensive plan to manage violent behaviors in the ED and protect staff and patients
• What Salaries Are Paid to Doctors in Russia, Ukraine... and Elsewhere in the World? - Market Leader News – (2/17)
  By definition, the doctor is one of the most respectable professions in any society, but not always and everywhere adequately paid.
• Let's examine the options for patient care - Times Colonist, CA – (2/16)
  The doctor shortage is only half the problem, the other half comes down to a lack of an organized system of "integrated health-care teams."

EUROPE

• The end of the National Health Service? - The Lancet, UK – (2/12)
  It is absurd to suggest that the NHS will no longer be a national service.
• GP consortia boss backs nurses' involvement - The Guardian, UK – (2/15)
  The man leading the development of GP groups across the East of England has said that GPs will need to engage with nurses on commissioning.
• Foreign doctors 'up to six times more likely to be banned' - Daily Mail, UK – (2/15)
  Foreign doctors are far more likely to be banned for putting patients in danger than those trained in the UK, a study has found
• Health visitor strategy plans for 6,000 new recruits - Nursing Times, UK – (2/10)
  Health visitors play such an important role – they give families that vital extra bit of support they need in their children’s early years, Public Health Minister said.
• Liberia’s desperate need for anaesthetics - Channel 4 News, UK – (2/13)
  Thousands of hospital staff fled Liberia during its brutal civil war. The critical lack of anaesthetists is contributing to almost 2,000 women dying in childbirth a year.
• A&E trolley crisis hit five-year high, finds report - Irish Examiner – (2/15)
  Figures released by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation show the number of patients who spent time on trolleys last year while awaiting an inpatient bed reached over 75,000, up from 55,720 in 2006
• Czech doctors agree with memorandum ending protest- Ceske Noviny, CZ – (2/16)
  Under the memorandum, hospital doctors are to have their base salaries increased by 5000-8000 crowns gross a month depending on qualification and practice as of March.
• De plus en plus de médecins roumains exercent en Belgique - 7 sur 7, Belgium – (2/14)
  Depuis 2007, environ 500 médecins étrangers immigrent en Belgique chaque année et les Roumains représentent un groupe très important.
• Up to 3,000 nurses protest at cut to student pay - Irish Times – (2/17)
  Nursing Unions have urged their members to punish politicians in the general election who do not pledge to reverse pay cuts for student nurses
• Un sistema sanitario atrapado en el pasado - ABC, Spain – (2/13)
  En el siglo XXI, el reto es adaptar el sistema a la atención de enfermedades crónicas, donde el gasto es mucho mayor.

LATIN AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN

• Del pabellón al tribunal: Juicios y mediaciones por negligencias médicas - La Segunda, Chile – (2/15)
  Obstetricia y traumatología, las especialidades más demandadas.
• Advierten déficit de médicos especialistas en México - Hoy Tamaulipas, Mexico . (2/10)
  En los próximos años México tendrá un déficit de médicos especialistas y enfermeras, advirtió el Secretario general de la Sección X del Sindicato del IMSS.
• Brigadistas atienden a la población pobre - El Universal, Colombia – (2/14)
  Atienden gratuitamente a personas que por la falta de dinero y la distancia entre las grandes ciudades no pueden acceder a un tratamiento medico especial.
• Ser paciente es imposible - Noticias Urbanas, Argentina – (2/16)
  Operaciones urgentes que se hacen con un año y medio de demora, esperas interminables para sacar turnos, problemas edilicios, falta de personal e insumos.
• Problema no SUS é de gerenciamento, afirmam especialistas - Diario da Saude, Brazil – (2/14)
  A falta de médicos no Sistema Único de Saúde está ligada à ausência de uma carreira única e estável e à carência de especialistas na rede pública.
• Should doctors disclose HIV status of patients to partners? - Jamaica Observer – (2/16)
  "I believe that she has a right to know, because it is her life that is at stake," says one practiotioner.