Irish Forum for Global Health Conference 2012 Closing Session

Irish Forum for Global Health Conference Statement

• Shaped by: – DCU symposium – Conference abstracts – Thematic working groups – Suggestions from conference participants – Plenary and parallel sessions

• The Conference participants agreed on priority issues that need to be addressed to achieve a sustainable and effective health workforce in all countries. These issues will be taken forward by development projects, research, advocacy and other initiatives by Irish individuals and organisations, in collaboration with international organisations and country partners, South and North. •

The participants call for countries and organisations to intensify action on the following policy priorities:

Investment in the health workforce

• • • Leaders of bilateral and multilateral development partners should provide coordinated support to countries, aligned to their national health plans and priorities. Low income countries should allocate sufficient financial resources from domestic budgets, ensuring that external support is complementary and additional, and the efficient use of these resources.

Global health initiatives, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and GAVI, should continue to invest in the health workforce as a key element of strengthening health systems.

Partnerships

• • • Scale up North-South institutional partnerships for human resource training, capacity building and delivery of health services; based on sustainable development, with strong governance and focused on health outcomes. Increase collaboration across all sectors involved in health in Ireland, including the private sector.

Promote South-South partnerships, including in country partnerships between community level organisations and national training and research institutions.

Education and Training

• • • All countries invest in health worker training to satisfy their domestic health care needs Strengthen the capacity of domestic training institutions to meet basic and specialised training needs in a sustainable way.

Increase use of distance learning approaches to enable personnel to remain in their countries and communities.

Community Based responses

• • • Increase coverage of community level workers to ensure full access to essential health care.

Recognise and expand the roles of community health volunteers, traditional practitioners, and other non-formal health workers; and integrate them into national human resource plans.

Increase investment in training, deployment, motivation and career development of mid-level cadres, who undertake tasks beyond their traditional scope of practice (task shifting).

Health worker motivation and retention

• • • • • Adopt strategies to attract and retain health workers with appropriate skills mix in rural and under-served areas.

Develop a gender-balanced workforce to ensure the health system is responsive to populations’ needs and expectations.

Improve working environments and employment conditions for healthcare workers, with attention to workload, psycho-social and health support, and opportunities for career progression.

Develop capacity at national, district and facility levels in HR leadership, information systems, supervision, and financial management and reporting. Undertake research on factors affecting health worker motivation and retention to inform appropriate financial and non-financial incentives.

Ethical recruitment and migration

• Ireland should fulfil its responsibilities in implementing the WHO Code on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel.

– Commit to a policy of national health workforce self sufficiency – Follow ethical principles when recruiting from other countries – Ensure equal treatment for migrant health workers – Increase initiatives to strengthen the workforce in countries with critical shortages of health personnel – Develop a system to provide real time information on health worker distributions, and inward and outward flows.

Research, Technology and Innovation

• • • Strengthen national health research systems and ensure north-south partnerships for human resources research involve policy makers and are based on local needs.

Research the role of new technologies to enhance education, training and management of health personnel.

Work with those in the IT and mobile sectors in Ireland and other countries to promote innovations that respond to real needs with appropriate, low cost sustainable solutions .