Absenteeism
Wastage in the health workforce: some perspectives from African countries
Motivation and better work environment needed to address human resources wastage in Africa
Authors:
D. Dovlo
Publisher:
Human Resources for Health, 2005
This paper, from Human Resources for Health, explores health workforce "wastage" in sub-Saharan Africa. Wastage is where training and deployment does not improve productivity and where the full potential of health workers is not achieved. The paper finds that "direct" wastage, or avoidable increases in the loss of staff through factors such as emigration and death, is increasing. The paper also finds that "indirect" wastage is also common. This is where there are losses in output and productivity as a result of misapplied skills, absenteeism, poor support and lack of supervision. The author notes that HIV and AIDS represents a special case of wastage in Africa, as the impacts of HIV result in death of health workers, fear of infection, burnout, absenteeism, heavy workloads and stress.
The author concludes that current African economies are unable to fund systems that can control wastage. To address this, the author suggests key areas that need specific attention. These include: developing and using indicators for monitoring and managing wastage; enhancing the motivation and morale of health workers; protecting and valuing the health worker with enhanced occupational safety and welfare systems; and establishing moral leadership to effectively tackle the brain drain, and HIV and AIDS. [adapted from author]
