Evidence from new policy briefs by the Observatory and WHO informs discussions at key conference during World Health Worker Week
More than 4000 delegates from around the world attended the Fifth Global Forum on Human Resources for Health under the theme “protecting, safeguarding, and investing in the health and care workforce”. The hybrid conference was organised by the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
Supporting health and care workers post-pandemic, collaborating across sectors, and investing in the health workforce were the core topics of each day of the Forum between 3 and 5 April. Together with the WHO, the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies published a set of three policy briefs summarising the evidence that informed high-level political roundtables.
Learning from COVID-19 to support health and care workers
“National responses to COVID-19 showed that the health and care workforce is capable of radical innovation and change,” said Josep Figueras, Director of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies while facilitating one of the roundtables. “But do we have the political and financial capital to harness and implement the innovations that have emerged in countries during the pandemic?”.
Ricardo Baptista Leite, a medical doctor and member of the Portuguese parliament called for monitoring mechanisms for health workers’ mental health status, for building on the innovation his country has seen in digital health, and ultimately for a pandemic treaty to keep Humanity safe.
Mozambique’s Minister of Health reminded that every single minister has responsibility for health, especially in countries with limited resources. His peer in Papua New Guinea told how offering special training to health workers helped to fight the pandemic.
The high-level panel agreed that the root from which such innovations emerge must be a resilient health system. “The response is only as good as the health system you built”, said Atul Gawande from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
What policies and practices to recruit, retain, reskill, and support health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic should inform future workforce development?
Working across sectors to protect the health workforce
Working across different sectors was the call of the second day of discussions. Forum delegates included decision-makers across education, finance, gender, health, employment, and migration sectors.
In a political roundtable dedicated to education and employment in the health sector, policy-makers from Niger, Brazil, India, the US and Romania agreed that protecting the health and care workforce required team work.
Such intersectoral collaboration must translate into concrete policy action, warned Jim Campbell, Health Workforce Director at WHO. Member States should be able to mobilise their governments to address migration, distribute the workforce, reduce shortfalls, ensure the availability of data, and maximise financial support.
Several sessions addressed the many aspects of the health and care workforce crisis – from preventing violence and retaining staff to improving the skill-mix and ensuring that young health workers don’t leave the sector.
“But where do we get the money for implementing all this?,” asked Matthias Wismar, Programme Manager at the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies kicking off a political roundtable on investment in the health workforce sector.
The panel discussed financing solutions to scale up training, scale up employment, and improve retention through the creation of decent work.
“Investing in the health workforce is probably one of the most important investments if we want to achieve Universal Health Coverage,” called Lindiwe Makubalo, WHO Assistant Regional Director for Africa.
In Ghana, investing in opening new institutions and training young health workers helped to fill in a gap caused by migration, exemplified Minister of Health Kwaku Agyemang-Manu.
The European Union has expanded budgets towards the COVID-19 response, enabling Member States to improve the resilience of their health systems, including the workforce element. Paco Peres Canado, from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, is hopeful that such financial mechanisms will help countries design their health system actions and mobilise domestic resources longer-term.
The Fifth Global Forum on Human Resources for Health took place as celebrations began for the WHO’s 75th anniversary. WHO is urging countries to take action to protect, support and expand the health workforce as a strategic priority. Investments in education, skills and decent jobs for health need to be prioritised to meet the rapidly growing demand for health and avert a projected shortage of 10 million health workers by 2030; primarily in low- and middle-income countries.
The outcomes of the Forum will inform the United Nations General Assembly’s High-Level Meetings on Universal Health Coverage and Pandemic Preparedness Prevention and Response in September 2023.