A ten-point plan to improve the nursing profession through education and training was recently agreed upon by the national Health Ministry in South Africa. Health minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, said discussions were underway between the department of Higher Education and Training, his department, the Council on Higher Education and Umalusi on the role of new quality councils in quality assurance of the diversity of health science offerings. From this discussion, an agreement emerged between the Department of Health and the Department of Higher Education and Training on the need for a diversified nursing education and training system. The next step was to revitalise the nursing colleges sector. This followed a recognition that strengthening colleges would contribute to a vibrant nursing education and training system. ‘What we need to do is work out how we can retain nurse educators, encourage nurse education as a critical career path and more generally attract young people into the profession,’ Motsoaledi said.
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This paper reviews Malawi’s strategy, with particular focus on the interface between health surveillance assistants (HSAs), volunteers in community-based programmes and the community health team. The authors analysis identified key challenges that may impede the strategy’s implementation inadequate training, imbalance of skill sets within community health team (CHT) and unclear job descriptions for community health volunteers (CHVs); proposed community-level interventions require expansion of pre-existing roles for most CHT members; and district authorities may face challenges meeting financial obligations and filling community-level positions. For effective implementation, attention and further deliberation is argued to be needed on the appropriate CHV support, CHT composition with possibilities of co-opting trained CHVs from existing volunteer programmes into CHTs, review of CHT competencies and workload and strengthening coordination and communication across all community actors.
The Mozambican Red Cross will begin training hundreds of volunteer workers to manage antiretroviral therapy (ART) for people in their care living with HIV/AIDS. "This training is extremely important and will improve the work of our carers," Paula Macava, the Red Cross Mozambique coordinator of the HIV/AIDS programme, told IRIN. "We have now finalised an eight-module training package on antiretroviral therapy management, specifically designed for carers."
UNICEF warned on Monday that child labourers in Mozambique were at a high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and said it would encourage the government to find ways to stop child labour.
Donor aid creates inflated salary scales and benefits: a driver for a US bilateral agency in Addis Ababa might be paid more than a professor in the medical faculty, and a public-health specialist 4–5 times the government salary on joining an international non-governmental organisation. In certain regions of Ethiopia and Mozambique, the budget of a single large non-governmental organisation may exceed that of the government. The projected budget for vertical programmes in HIV/AIDS for 2006 in Ethiopia is US$100 million, or around a third of the annual health budget for the entire country.
A descriptive, non-interventive, observational study design was used to audit of all public and private sector ICU and HCUs in South Africa to determine the profile and number of nurses working in South African intensive care units (ICUs) and high care units (HCUs); (ii) to determine the number of beds in ICU and HCUs in South Africa; and (iii) to determine the ratio of nurses to ICU/HC beds.This study demonstrates that ICU nursing in South Africa faces the challenge of an acute shortage of trained and experienced nurses. Nurses are tired, often not healthy, and are plagued by discontent and low morale.
The South African government wants to use the newly launched Academy for Leadership and Management in Healthcare to set benchmarks, norms and standards for the leadership and management of hospitals in South Africa. The academy was launched in November 2012 to provide leadership and management skills to hospital CEOs. Just over a hundred CEOs started orientation week on 4 February 2013. At the start of orientation week, Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi argued that hospital CEOs were key to addressing problems such as staff constraints and fraud. In the future, he expected that no person would become a hospital CEO or manager without first having attended the academy. He added that problems in South African hospitals often related to leadership and management, rather than staffing.
In this blog, the author argues that a palpable effect of Kenya’s new constitution is that it has allowed the formation of new trade unions such as the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU). Since its formation, the group has become a key stakeholder in promoting the needs of Kenyan health professionals. Another change the constitution brought about is the permission of dual citizenship, which has the potential to increase circular migration among health professionals who have previously departed the country. Finally, the new constitution prioritises the right to health in Section 43 (1) (a), noting that every Kenyan has the “right to the highest attainable standard of health which includes the right to health care services including reproductive health care.” This places a high level of expectation on the government and health care workers, creating a basis for the public to demand such a right. To convert these potential gains into practice, however, much work remains to be done, particularly in researching how the health system has responded. One of the greatest challenges the author has faced in conducting her own research on migration is in encountering stakeholders who are unwilling to cooperate either directly or indirectly, which she views as a part of a resistance to an evidence-based culture, even among some in the health sector.
The migration of doctors and nurses from Africa to developed countries has raised fears of an African medical brain drain. But empirical research on the causes and effects of the phenomenon has been hampered by a lack of systematic data on the extent of African health workers' international movements. This study uses destination-country census data to estimate the number of African-born doctors and professional nurses working abroad in a developed country circa 2000, and compares this to the stocks of these workers in each country of origin. About 65 000 African-born physicians and 70 000 African-born professional nurses were working overseas in a developed country in the year 2000. This represents about one fifth of African-born physicians in the world, and about one tenth of African-born professional nurses. The fraction of health professionals abroad varies enormously across African countries, from 1% to over 70% according to the occupation and country. The authors conclude that these numbers are the first standardised, systematic, occupation-specific measure of skilled professionals working in developed countries and born in a large number of developing countries.
Ten newly graduated Namibian medical doctors will this week be commissioned into service by the Ministry of Health and Social Services, the Health Minister Richard Kamwi said at a recent meeting with the community here. At times, the Government had to rely on friendly countries such as Cuba and others for medical personnel. He urged parents to encourage their children to take subjects such as mathematics and science in order to qualify for medical training.