Malawi among 55 countriesshort on health workers
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has listed Malawi in a group of 55 countries with the most pressing shortage of health workers in the world.
According to the WHO report, the countries have a density of doctors, nurses and midwives below the global median of 49 per 10 000 population, but also universal health coverage index below the international required threshold.
Of the 55 countries, 37 are in the WHO African region including Malawi, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia and Angola, eight in the Western Pacific region, six in the Eastern Mediterranean region, three in the South-East Asia region and one is in the Americas.
In a recent interview, Minister of Health Khumbize Kandodo- Chiponda admitted that while some recruitment takes place, employment in the health sector has been affected by lack of proper procedures.
She said: “That is why we are now coming up with guidelines on recruitment. The problem has been there for the past 20 years. We are talking with the medical council so that we develop guidelines on recruitment because it is unfair to see somebody who has graduated this year getting recruited while others who graduated in 2012 are not.”
Recruitment of health care workers has been bankrolled by donor partners such as the United States President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention, The Global Fund and the Health Joint Fund.
Society of Medical Do c t o r s p r e s i d e n t Victor Mithi yesterday said overdependence on donors was not helping matters, and discussions with Capital Hill were not yielding desired results.
“Usually, recruitment has been happening using donor-funded initiatives. We saw it during the Covid-19 pandemic and now with cholera.
“We have been trying to discuss with the government but we understand that the budget issues are there but health care workers are needed in the country because at the moment we have a vacancy rate of over 60 percent which we can’t leave in the hands of donors to fill for us.”
Meanwhile, WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement said the list should be used to inform advocacy, policy dialogue at all levels and financing efforts in support of health workforce education and employment.
“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.
Ministry of Health data show that Malawi has 90 medical officers, 201 clinical officers, 247 medical assistants, 66 optometry technicians, 42 anaesthetic clinical technicians and 22 orthopaedic clinical technicians.
The country also has 3 012 nursing officers, nurse midwife technicians and community midwifery a s s i s t a n t s w h o a r e qualified but remain unemployed.
