Global health labor workforce faces challenges as strikes continue
Today, the health workforce lacks at least 7.2 million workers. The World Health Organization identifies several causes for this shortage of staff. First, the current workforce is too old, and too few of the younger generations are entering it as the current staff retires or leaves for better paying jobs. Second, the migration of health workers to other, more developed countries causes a regional imbalance. Recommendations for this crisis include an increase in political leadership to support long-term human resource development efforts, better health databases, more accessible health services, a more equal distribution of health workers geographically, and better rights for health workers. While it may be easy for policymakers to suggest these changes, however, it has proven much more difficult to implement them. According to a report by the World Health Organization, 83 countries remain below the threshold for the required number of health service workers. To make matters worse, a future assessment shows that the current rate of training new professionals is well below the demand. This means that in the future, those who already have limited access to healthcare will find it extremely difficult to get the essential services they need. This is especially the case for doctors and nurses who specialize in a certain group of diseases or treatments. For example, Jamaica is currently facing a healthcare crisis as many “specialist” nurses leave for better pay in other countries, like the United States and Canada. This crisis has caused several hospitals to cancel surgeries and other procedures due to lack of appropriately trained staff. The Jamaican government has attempted to combat this issue by training general nurses for free, but these nurses are immediately recruited by other, wealthier countries. Even though the nurses are required to pay a $5,000 fine to prevent them from leaving, these recruiting agencies just pay it off. These leaves Jamaica in an even more precarious situation than before they trained general nurses. This crisis extends far beyond the borders of Jamaica and permeates every low-income community that can at least afford to train its healthcare workers.