In Uganda, 3 Initial Objectives
Mar 3rd, 2008 by Emily Bancroft
In Uganda, we have been preparing for the Global Health Workforce Alliance Forum for many months. Because the forum is here in Kampala, it has provided health professionals and civil society organizations the opportunity to reflect on the situation here in Uganda. Like many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda is experiencing a health workforce crisis. In a country of 27 million people, there are only about 2200 doctors and 19,000 nurses and midwives. That’s about 3 times fewer than the minimum number of doctors, nurses, and midwives recommended by the World Health Organization. A large proportion of the doctors, nurses, and midwives are located in Kampala, leaving the rural areas of the country with even fewer health professionals to serve the majority of the population.
At the Action Group for Health, Human Rights, and HIV/AIDS (AGHA), we have convened a group of health professional associations, trade associations, health rights organizations, and health service organizations to develop an advocacy strategy for addressing the health workforce crisis in Uganda. Called the Health Workforce Advocacy Forum—Uganda (HWAF), this coalition has been meeting for the last few months to identify issues and agree on solutions. The goal of HWAF is to advocate for investments, concrete policy changes and improved implementation of existing policies that will lead to enhanced training, recruitment, and retention of health workers in Uganda.
To reach this goal, HWAF is first focusing on three objectives that we believe will help increase both the numbers of health workers and the quality of health services provided in Uganda:
- Ensuring that all approved posts are filled with trained health workers by the end of 2009.
- Improving infection prevention and control mechanisms in clinics and hospitals country-wide.
- Implementing a national policy mandating effective and high quality community-based education as a part of all health professional pre-service training programs.
The HWAF members will all be at the forum—listening, learning, exchanging ideas, and sharing our agenda with others. We are excited to be a part of this important event, and we look forward to sharing more of our experiences on this blog over the coming week.
Emily Bancroft is a Leland Policy Fellow in the Health Action AIDS Africa Program.
