Reflecting on Zambia

Posted by npafan1997 on Sunday, December 30, 2007 at 12:12 am

On a recent trip to Zambia, a vacation, I had many chances to see the health care system at work.   As a country with universal health care, deeply affected by HIV/AIDS, and limited resources to expand its health care workforce, there are both opportunities and challenges within its current system.   

Zambia offers health care to all of its residents. Given that so many people live in poverty (about 70%), it is the only way most residents can receive care.   Indeed, even though the country it is stuck by the massive HIV/AIDS epidemic, the government is committed to ensuring that all HIV+ individuals have access to ARVs and other medicines that help treat the symptoms of HIV, help the infected live productive lives, and prevent the spread of disease.  I met many people who lived on less than one dollar per day, but had access to the medicines need to maintain a healthy lifestyle with HIV.   There are still many people in need, but the country is making progress in getting medicines to its countrymen.

At the same time, there is an utter dearth of health care workers, making it hard for individuals to receive quality treatment or the preventive education that they need.  Because many individuals cannot afford the time and money that it takes to go through schooling to become a health professional, there is a major shortage of physicians and right now many of the nursing staff only have a limited range of schooling.   The ones that do receive training are many times wooed to other countries, where there are nursing shortages.  In one visit to the hospital, there was not a doctor to be found and the nursing staff could not speak the local language of the patients, making effective communication and treatment very difficult.  

This experience really reinforced why we should be investing in more training of health workers across sub-Saharan Africa and in other areas of the world where the workforce has been reduced.  Until we do so, U.S. funding and dollars will only have limited impact on how each nation’s is able to ensure that their countrymen can take advantage of universals health care systems and ensure that each resident has the opportunity to achieve their personal best health status.

 

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Category: global health,healthcare workforce,international healthcare workforce

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