[MUSIC] All people everywhere will have access to a skilled, motivated, and supported health worker within a robust health system. This is the vision of the Global Health Workforce Alliance, which was launched in 2006 as part of the response to the global human resources for health crisis. Human resources for health, or health workforce, is defined as all people engaged in actions whose primary intent is to enhance health. These human resources include clinical staff, such as physicians, nurses, pharmacists and dentists, as well as management and support staff. Those who do not deliver services directly, but are essential for the performance of health systems, such as managers, ambulance drivers, and accountants. In many countries, human resources for health remain the weakest link of health systems. In 2006, 57 countries fell below the critical threshold of 2.3 physicians, nurses, and midwives per 1,000 population, which is generally considered necessary to achieve an acceptable level of coverage of essential health services. This is caused by shortage and maldistribution of health workforce, limited training capacity, weak management systems, and poor working conditions, including inadequate financial and non-financial incentives. As well as losses caused by death, retirement, career change, or out-migration, which all lead to high attrition and poor morale and performance. It could therefore be argued that the health workforce is one of the most significant components of the infrastructure of the healthcare system. Yet there's still limited investment in collecting and analyzing health workforce data or in supporting the necessary research to inform effective public and private decision making. The results of this lack of investment are surplusses and shortages, significant maldistribution, and less efficient and effective care that would be possible with better intelligence on our workforce needs. The need for comprehensive, reliable, and timely information on human resources for health, including numbers, demographics, skills, services being provided. And factors influencing recruitment and retention has therefore been widely identified at the international, regional, and national levels among both resource constrained and wealthier countries. This need has become even more urgent in the view of the international effort to scale up education and training of health workers in the countries identified as having a critical shortage of highly skilled health professionals. In its report entitled Working For Health And Growth, Investing in the Health Workforce, the High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth proposed ten recommendations and five immediate actions. To transform the health and social workforce for the achievement of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Implementation of these will require game changing interventions and actions by member states led by ministries of health, education, employment, and finance, as well as the international community. Recognition that health systems' effectiveness and improvements in population health are critically dependent on an appropriately skilled, supported, and deployed health workforce is growing. This is quite promising because equity and universal health coverage will only be attained through substantive and strategic investment in human resources for health at the global, national, and system levels. This substantiates the point that the ability of a country to meet its health goals depends largely on the knowledge, skills, motivation, and deployment of the people responsible for organizing and delivering health services. There's no health without workforce. Good health can also support economic recovery and development. This is because health services are labor intensive with human resources accounting for as much as 60 to 80% of total recurrent expenditure in health systems. This means that health performance and economic performance are interlinked with improvement of health workforce effectiveness being the key connection. This was particularly highlighted by the High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth. Which found that health workforce investments coupled with the right policy action could unleash enormous socioeconomic gains in quality education, gender equality, decent work, inclusive economic growth, and health and well being. This dismantled the long held belief that investment in the health workforce is a drag on the economy. This paradigm shift provides new political impetus for member states to implement WHO's strategy on human resources for health workforce 2030. To summarize, human resources for health are all people engaged in actions whose primary intent is to enhance health. They constitute one of the most significant components of the infrastructure of the healthcare system. Challenges facing human resources for health include shortage and maldistribution of the health workforce, limited training capacity, weak management systems and poor working conditions. As well as losses caused by death, retirement, career change, or out-migration, which all leads to high attrition and poor morale and performance. There's a need for comprehensive, reliable, and timely information on human resources for health, including numbers, demographics, skills, services being provided, and factors influencing recruitment and retention. Good health can also support economic recovery and development. Equity and universal health coverage will only be attained through substantive and strategic investment in human resources for health at global, national, and systems levels. And remember, there's no health without workforce. [MUSIC]
