[afro-nets] MSF Satellite: Mind the Gaps - AIDS treatment in the context of health worker shortages, IAC, Mexico City (2)

["Peter Burgess" <peterbnyc@gmail.com>]

Dear Jean-Marc JACOBS

I am glad you are raising the question of health care worker shortages. For about 15 years from 1985 on I was very much in the middle of planning for development ... at the national level, at sector level, at project level, at community level and in emergency affected areas.

One of my colleagues and I talked a lot about the continuum of development ... meaning how today’s initiatives would help way on into the future ... in other words we were talking about development investment ... but we found that this was not part of what anyone wanted to talk about, let alone fund.

So 20 plus years later ... the deficit caused by a failure to make longer term development investments has become a crisis ... and it seems that very little has been learned.

MSF has done more than most to help get things right ... but the data about what they have done and how they have done it is not particularly well known ... in fact I only know of the solid work of MSF because of seeing it physically myself ... their PR might have been written by any one of many international NGOs .. and I want to start seeing data about what was done when and where and with what results and at what cost. All basic stuff that is needed if every we are going to get any accountability.

And as to the challenge of the shortage of health workers ... it would be useful to know something about how many have been trained over the past 20 years or so, and what all these trained people are now doing. We know some are being recruited to handle the shortages in Europe, North America, etc ... we know some don't work because the jobs and money for salaries are not there ... we know too many have died ... but the data are poor and not discussed very much ... though I don't know why not. Seems to me that development resources being used to build up the human capacity in the health sector would be a good investment ... but it has to be done in a way that ensures that the investment has a durable value. For that I would recommend looking hard at the potential of local nurses, midwives, TBAs, etc who have huge potential for real world benefit delivery at modest cost. Also I would recommend looking at the imbalance between jobs needed to get the job done and money available to pay salaries for the people to do the jobs.

If anyone has these data, I would love to look at them.

Sincerely

Peter Burgess

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Peter Burgess
The Transparency and Accountability Network: Tr-Ac-Net in New York
http://www.tr-ac-net.org
Community Accountancy
Integrated Malaria Management Consortium (IMMC)
+1 917 432 1191 or +1 212 772 6918 
mailto:peterbnyc@gmail.com