The Health Minister, Dr. Joe Phaahla, has said that the lack of healthcare professionals threatens the quality and sustainability of health systems in Africa and throughout the globe.
“Health care is a fundamental human right. But without health workers, there cannot be health services,” he said on Sunday.
The Minister spoke at the formal inauguration of the 24th Association of Medical Councils of Africa (AMCOA) international conference in Sun City Resort, North West, with the topic “The Health Workforce of the Future and Its Regulation.”
AMCOA is a membership-based organisation with approximately 30 countries members from various areas of Africa. It seeks to promote best practises across the continent’s regulatory bodies and to meet their present and future requirements.
Even before the disastrous COVID-19 pandemic, Phaahla reminded delegates that the global scarcity of healthcare professionals was “serious.”
The underinvestment in education and training, as well as the mismatch between education and employment plans in connection to health systems and population demands, were cited as elements leading to this calamity, according to the expert.
Phaahla identified the “crisis in human resources” as one of the most urgent global health concerns of our day.
In addition, Phaahla said that the undersupply coincides with globalisation and market liberalisation, which enable healthcare professionals to sell their services in nations other than their own.
According to him, rural and impoverished workers migrate to cities in search of better working conditions and environs, while urban workers leave the public sector for the private sector.
“Finally, these professionals and their colleagues in the public sector eventually immigrate to more developed countries to obtain greater pay, better working conditions, the overall better quality of life and improved opportunities for themselves and their families.”
He cautioned that migration to “greener pastures,” especially among professionals with exportable skills, has always happened and would continue to occur.
Since then, the Minister has pushed authorities to address other linked concerns and issues.
In the meanwhile, the demand for health care is rising due to the ageing population, the incidence of infectious, noncommunicable, and multimorbid illnesses, and the prevalence of multimorbidity.
According to the Minister, this has increased the need for health and care employees, particularly in primary health.
According to him, these shortages continue to impede access to the provision of health services, especially in primary care settings.
“This is the most critical challenge to achieving universal health coverage,” he said.
“Without the availability of a competent and appropriately skilled health workforce, adequate numbers and proportionately distributed, many citizens of our continent struggle to get access to the services they need.”
In addition, he noted the countries’ shrinking health budgets due to subdued economic growth.
“This certainly puts a lot of pressure on the whole health ecosystem.”
He also underlined the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has posed a challenge to the creation and supply of key health services.
The Minister emphasised that when infectious disease epidemics occur, healthcare professionals are sometimes the most susceptible to infection.
In the early months of the pandemic, health professionals accounted for 14% of all new COVID-19 cases, and it is estimated that between 80,000 and 180,000 healthcare workers died from the virus between January 2020 and May 2021.
He also acknowledged the significance of gender dynamics in this sector, where women make up 67% of the worldwide health and care workforce.
Phaahla said that gender equality must be improved in order to improve workforce size, distribution, skill mix, and human resource policy and planning shortcomings.
“We are aware that women still encounter gendered issues such as occupational segregation, pay inequality and underrepresentation in leadership and decision‐making in many countries.”
He has called on the delegates to reflect on these complex matters.
“This conference needs, as I argued before, to reflect on the kind of regulatory mechanisms needed for the scopes of practice to deliver health services in our modern societies.”