The World Health Organization (WHO) published an updated health workforce support and safeguards list for the year 2023, identifying 55 countries as being particularly vulnerable to a shortage of medical professionals needed.
According to WHO, the COVID-19 effect and broad disruptions to health services have caused a sharp increase in the overseas hiring of health professionals.
Countries’ health systems may suffer if they lose medical professionals to international migration, which could impede their efforts to achieve UHC and health security.
“Of the 55 countries, 37 are in the WHO African region, eight in the Western Pacific region, six in the Eastern Mediterranean region, three are in the South-East Asia region and one is in the Americas. Eight countries have been newly added to the WHO health workforce support and safeguards list 2023 since its original publication in 2020,” reads WHO’s report.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s Director-General said that health workers are the backbone of every health system, and yet 55 countries with some of the world’s most fragile health systems do not have enough, and many are losing their health workers to international migration.
He said that the WHO is assisting these nations in strengthening their health workforce and that we are urging all nations to adhere to the guidelines in the WHO health workforce assistance and safeguards list.
The list should be used as guidance for advocacy, policy discussion at all levels, and funding initiatives to support the training and employment of the health workforce in these nations.
The same list does not forbid international recruitment, but it does recommend that government-to-government health worker migration agreements take into account health labor market analysis and adopt measures to ensure a sufficient supply of health workers in the source countries; involve Ministries of Health in the negotiation and implementation of agreements; and specify the benefits of the arrangement for the health system.
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