The health workforce in Malawi, alongwith other African countries suffered from an acute shortageof its workforce. The Malawi health sector strategic plan(HSSP) 2011-2016 set out key strategies and interventions tosupport the delivery of an essential health package ofservices. The human resources for health strategic planincluded an HRH capacity development plan that focused ontraining of registered nurse midwifes, nurse midwifetechnicians, community midwives and community volunteers.These plans focused on production of health care workers(increasing the quantity) but not on the most efficaciousdistribution based on disease burden and demand forservices. Emergency approaches to replace health workerswere instituted to address the shortages of health workerstogether with the fielding of large numbers of communityvolunteers and community based health surveillanceassistants which could be trained in a short space of timeand provide the community essential health package (c-EHP).The Ministry of Health (MoH) is currently developing itsnext health sector strategic plan, with an expansion of theessential health package and is now challenged withincreasing its stock of health workers within the context ofdeclining share of development assistance. The World Bank aspart of its support to the government of Malawi (GoM) hasinstituted a WISN study in seventy-five Health facilitiestargeting eight priority health cadres. Additionally, amapping and qualitative study have been undertaken toidentify key community cadres undertaking direct healthrelated activities with their communities. The results ofthis study will provide evidence to inform policy andstrategy development particularly in relation to the currentwork of the MoH on development of the new five-year HSSP andHR strategy.
PDF
download
878987797
028-85220240
