Africa
Human resources crisis in the Zambian health system: a call for urgent action
Delegating medical tasks and engaging with the private sector could alleviate Zambian health worker crisis
Authors:
G. Kombe; D. Galaty; V. Mtonga; P. Banda
Publisher:
Partners for Health Reformplus , 2005
This paper, from PRHplus, examines the state of human resources for health in Zambia. Findings show that the Zambian public health sector has reach a point of crisis and is unable to provide basic health services. This is due to: losing health workers because of better prospects elsewhere; the limited capacity of Zambian medical and professional schools to train additional staff; and the impact of HIV and AIDS. Specific findings include: attrition rates of all health staff have increased dramatically compared to historical trends; looking only at national human resources can obscure trends taking place within the country; and facilities will soon experience severe constrains in expanding their HIV and AIDS services.
The authors outline a number of strategies intended to alleviate the human resources shortfall. They recommend delegating certain ART (anti-retroviral therapy) tasks from doctors to clinical officers and nurses. They also suggest delegating laboratory processing of HIV and AIDS screening and confirmation tests from laboratory technicians to other cadres. Other recommendations include: raising compensation to encourage health workers to remain in Zambia; engaging private pharmacists to dispense antiretroviral drugs to relieve facility pharmacists; and bringing in foreign health workers to help reduce the shortfall in the short run.
