Report: scarcity of docs a global phenomenon

Western countries are often accused of poaching doctors and nurses from developing countries but scarcity of doctors is faced...

Western countries are often accused of poaching doctors and nurses from developing countries but scarcity of doctors is faced all over the world. According to the latest report presented in the World Health Assembly WHA, the whole world is facing shortage of health workers because not enough people are being trained.

8220;The biggest problem is that we don8217;t educate and train enough,8221; said Nigel Crisp, who co-chairs a Global Health Workforce Alliance taskforce aimed at increasing education and training for health workers.

In Ethiopia, just 200 doctors are trained a year for a population of 75 million while in Britain, over 6,000 are trained for a population of 60 million.

According to experts, due to shortage of trained hands, about one billion people do not get health care or access to health workers. 8220;We estimate that migration of health workers from poor to rich countries amounts to about 12 per cent of the gap in health workers,8221; said Crisp.

According to a 2006 estimate of World Health Organisation, there is a global shortage of some 4.3 million health workers. However, to train 1.5 million additional health workers in Africa alone, some 2.6 billion a year is needed.

The report says in India, out of the number of doctors registered in 2006, a doctor-to-population ratio stands at 60:1,00,000, much below than that of Australia 249.1, US 548.9 and UK 1,665.5.

If the targeted doctor-population norm is taken here as 1:1000, there is a requirement of 6,00,000 doctors, one million nurses, 2,00,000 dental surgeons and a large number of paramedical staff, including radiographers, X-ray technicians, physiotherapists, laboratory technicians, dental hygienists, orthopaedists and opticians. Compared to the requirement of 21,88,890 in 2007, only 11,56,372 nurses were available.

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The availability of specialist manpower in community health centres is particularly bad as against the sanctioned strength. Posts of about 59.4 per cent surgeons, 45 per cent obstetricians and gynaecologists, 61 per cent physicians and 53 per cent paeditricians were vacant in March 2006.