Prioritize Health Workers at the US-Africa Leaders Summit

By Community Health Impact Coalition, Nonprofit organization Community health supervisor Karana Weefar coaches community health workers Laura Gbee and Peter Zeo on how to count a young girl ' s respiration rate. Photo by Rachel Larson for Last Mile Health.December 08, 2022The US-Africa Leaders Summit taking place next week presents a momentous opportunity for the Biden-Harris Administration to move from vision to action on its ambitious and long-overdue Global Health Workforce Initiative while simultaneously bolstering Africa-led workforce initiatives.The Summit will include high-level dialogue with African Ministers of Health on the health workforce, but any ongoing US-Africa dialogue should be expanded to include health workers themselves and their representatives, based on the principle of“nothing about us without us,” to ensure their needs are fully addressed.A strong, well-supported health workforce is the backbone of well-functioning primary health care systems, and critical for global health security. But it is not yet in place. Even prior to the pandemic the world faced a shortage of nearly 15 million health workers, mostly in low- and middle-income countries, with the shortage growing in Africa. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) reported an even greater shortage, estimating that over 43 million additional health workers are needed to meet targets for universal health coverage around the world, with ...
Source: IntraHealth International - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Policy & Advocacy Health Workers Source Type: news