Subnavigation

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

Alliance News Digest

Week of 29 October 2010

NEWS FROM WHO AND PARTNERS

• AKUH Clinical Laboratories launch e-Reporting – Aga Khan University, Pakistan - (10/26)
  Patients will now be able to get their reports online, instead of having to collect them from the laboratory collection points
• New UN report echoes Merlin’s campaign call – Merlin, UK - (10/25)
  This report echoes the message that global health and poverty targets will never be met if conflict and security are not addressed
• Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health – Fogarty International Center - (August 2010)
  Announcement about the Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health program
• Key African Meeting on Human Resources for Health Sector Opens In Nairobi –AMREF - (10/11)
  One of the key issues that negatively impact Africa’s health is the lack of adequate personnel to provide appropriate health care
• Health, a shared responsibility - Wemos, Netherlands - (10/13)
  Health should not be restricted to the Ministry of Health but integrated into the policies of other ministries

AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST

• Kenya races to reduce deaths at childbirth - Daily Nation, Kenya.-.(10/24)
  The Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation recently launched the National Road Map Strategic Plan for this purpose.
• Tanzania healers get training in HIV – African Business Week - (10/27)
  Traditional healers that have shown some success in treating HIV/Aids patients in Tanzania are to receive Tsh500 million
• Critical shortage of lab technicians – The Zimbabwean – (10/27)
  A situation, health personnel say, is affecting the treatment of HIV and TB patients
• Foreign doctors have long wait to practise .- Times Live, SA - (10/25)
  Foreign doctors and nurses desperate to practise their skills in South Africa are forced to wait up to six years to be registered
• Nurses honoured for saving babies – Sowetan, SA. (10/25)
  Three out of every four newborn deaths, occur in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where there is a critical shortage of skilled health workers
• Kamuli midwifery school gets Shs3 billion block – Daily Monitor, Uganda. (10/13)
  Uganda is faced with high burden of diseases and lacks skilled and trained health personnel
• Health Standards in Turkey Lose in International Comparison – Bianet, Turkey. (10/27)
  The income level is one of the most important factors that affect the health level of any country

ASIA AND PACIFIC

• Managing the country's ageing population – The Star, Malaysia. (10/25)
  Malaysia is facing a chronic shortage of skills, as well as an exit of skills through brain drain and retirement
• Doctors with diplomate board degrees can teach in colleges – Sify News, India – (10/27)
  In a bid to reduce the shortage of medical faculty in the country.
• Low cost HIV/AIDS drugs to be available in India by Oct-end – Business Standard, India – (10/27)
  The cost would reduce by 75 to 99 per cent compared to the international market
• Thai Touch in HIV Care Attracts Doctors from Asia, Africa – Inter Press Service – (10/21)
  Health workers spend time at the Chiang Rai Prachanukroh Hospital to learn how Thai health workers have succeeded in reducing the spread of HIV among babies
• Doctors' desire to leave NZ may be fading, says report – New Zealand Herald – (10/26)
  The Medical Council's latest workforce survey shows that the trend for doctors to leave New Zealand after graduating has been arrested or even reversed
• Nursing union worried about graduate prospects – ABC News, Australia. (10/27)
  More than 1,000 nurses and midwives are due to graduate, but only 500 or so positions for graduates are being made available
• Real nightingales – Fiji Times – (10/27)
  Nurse practitioners are compelled to work outside the prescribed scope of their vocation

NORTH AMERICA

• Some Africans, poor no more, hit by new diseases.- Washington Post – (10/24)
  With the comforts of middle class life, afflictions familiar in the West are making inroads in Africa too
• Reform means more health workers needed – San Francisco Chronicle – (22/10)
  As millions more people become insured, the number of patients requiring services will dramatically increase.
• Cuba, Brazil Unite for Africa's Health – IPS Terra Viva – (10/26)
  In response to the WHO call, the Finlay Institute of Cuba and Brazil's Bio-Manguinhos immunobiological institute, joined forces to produce the Men AC vaccine
• 4 In Haiti, cholera could heighten earthquake misery – The Washington Post - (10/24))
  Aid workers say the risk is magnified by the extreme poverty faced by people displaced by the earthquake
• IOM urges greater role for advanced-practice nurses – American Medical News. (10/20)
  Physician organizations quickly counter that patients benefit most when doctors have the central responsibility in delivering care.
• Hunt Family Foundation donates $10 million to establish nursing school at Texas Tech – The Daily Tell, TX – (10/25)
  The school will indeed serve a growing need in the state of Texas
• Severe shortage of radiation oncologists – Dotmed News – (10/22)
  Over the next decade, the demand for radiation oncologists will be 10 times greater than the supply of the medical specialists
• Iraqi Mental Health Professionals Observe U.S. Facilities, Bring New Ideas Home – Internal Medicine News – (10/26)
  The country has only about 100 psychiatrists to serve a population of 30 million people
• Gates experimental grants start to show promise – Washington Post – (10/27)
  Some of the program's success so far is due to an unusual approval process that doesn't eliminate ideas just because peer scientists found them unlikely to succeed
• Close rural N.S. emergency rooms overnight: report – Toronto Sun – (10/27)
  In a short-staffed health-care system, there's no need to have doctors working the night shifts in these small towns, said the report

EUROPE

• Implementing the US health-care reform bill (Editorial) – The Lancet,UK – (10/23)
  Success will depend on the availability of physicians, given the current nationwide shortage
• Do specialist doctors make too much money? – Reuters – (10/25)
  Primary care physicians earn as little as half what their colleagues who specialize in areas such as surgery and oncology are taking home, according to a new study of doctors' salaries
• Staff skills not staff types for community-based rehabilitation – The Lancet, UK (10/21)
  African conference has been chosen to launch the new guidelines on community-based rehabilitation that aim to improve the lives of people living with a disability
• Les Français pourront téléconsulter un médecin dès 2011 – Le Monde – (10/26)
  La ministre de la santé estime que cette solution de la "télémédecine" pourrait résoudre le manque de médecins dans certaines régions
• Your country needs you – Irish Medical Times - (10/27)
  With a catastrophe looming over NCHD numbers, Dr Mick Molloy believes a ‘national service’ for Irish medical graduates should be explored
• España necesita 90.000 enfermeras para acercarse a los países desarrollados – Ideal.es - (10/24)
  España ha sido siempre catalogada como uno de los países desarrollados con más médicos y menos enfermeras, en términos relativos de población
• Los medicos reclaman que el cambio climático sea un asunto de salud pública – La Rioja.com – (10/26)
  Para la OMC es fundamental concienciar y formar al médico como agente activo y centinela de la detección de los posibles efectos del cambio climático.
• HAITI: Health Workers Scramble to Keep Cholera out of Crowded Camps – IPS Terra Viva, Europe – (10/22)
  The fear now is that the disease will reach Port-au-Prince and wreak havoc in the crowded camps by contaminating the water
• Staff shortage shuts Princess Elizabeth hospital ward – BBC News. (10/26)
  It would need to employ up to 28 nurses to keep the wing open.
• European regulators urge commission to tighten regulations on doctors’ cross border working – BMJ, UK. (10/25)
  Doctors’ regulators from 23 countries in Europe urge European Commission to tighten requirements for doctors who practise outside their home country

LATIN AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN

• Paros en Salud por demandas salariales – El Heraldo, Honduras – (10/27)
  Los burócratas en general iniciaron con una petición de aumento de 3,000 lempiras, aunque luego sus pretensiones fueron bajando
• Enfermeras reclaman sus salarios – ABC Digital, Paraguay – (10/28)
  Hace unos dos meses no perciben sus sueldos, debido a un sistema de bloqueo a aquellos funcionarios públicos con dobles contratos
• Falta de personal satura las clínicas – Milenio, Mexico – (10/28)
  En las 11 unidades del Centro de Salud en Altamira hacen falta por lo menos 13 trabajadores de la salud
• Pacientes protestan por falta de médicos en el Hospital de Policía - El Comercio, Peru. (10/21)
  Los pacientes se quejaron de que se daba prioridad a los oficiales de alta jerarquía, en perjuicio del personal subalterno.
• Piden a médicos no irse de México – Noroeste, Mexico. (10/23)
  IMSS los prepara y después de la especialización los galenos se van

Information