Ethiopian Review

Addis Ababa – Health Minister Dr. Tewodros Adhanom said efforts to scale up human resources for the health sector should be directed in line with the needs and the achievements expected in the sector.

The minister was speaking here on Monday at the opening of Human Resources for Health Results Research Symposium .

Dr. Tewodros said the Ethiopian government considers health as critical requirement for the development of the country.

He said human resource development had been put in place as one of the key components within the national Health Sector Development Program (HSDP).

The issue of human resource had further been reinforced by the ongoing health sector reform – a client-oriented business process, which emphasized stronger and more efficient human resource management structure, he said.

Whilst implementing the HSDP to achieve universal access to primary health care by 2010, it became apparent that there was a need for rapid and dramatic scale-up on health care workforce.

Accordingly, he said the Health Extension Program (HEP), a country-led initiative – a relatively low-cost, large scale and high-impact solution was launched to meet the immediate primary health care needs of the nation.

Dr. Tewodros said the ministry has managed to train and deploy the set target of 30,190 health extension workers in the rural areas of Ethiopia by December 2008, ahead of schedule.

Currently, only 130 medical graduates come out of universities a year, however, the number is not enough for a country with 77 million people.

Health Manager- Africa at the World Bank, Dr. Eva Jarawan said the Bank had started the Africa Health Workforce program aiming at providing an evidence-based health workforce reform to determine the type of incentives both financial and non-financial to attract and retain health workers in rural areas in 2005.

The Bank also launched health systems strengthening program that would expand human resource work and resolve health worker crisis in Africa through two hubs in Kenya and Senegal.

According to Dr. Jarawan, the International Finance Corporation, a private sector arm of the World Bank, has also launched private sector solutions to the human resources crises with special emphasis on education, technical assistance and health care training.

Some 130 experts on health worker crisis as well as representatives of development partners will deliberate on the latest findings in the fields of health labor markets and ways of scaling up education for health professionals in the African continent during the course of the conference.

Ethiopia’s human resource development evolution was presented at the conference and deliberation was made on it.

- ENA