HURAPRIM

Human Resources for Primary Health Care in Africa

 Partecipanti

Mappa

 Word cloud

Esplora la "nuvola delle parole (Word Cloud) per avere un'idea di massima del progetto.

 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Multiple reports have documented the important deficit in human resources in health (HRH) in Africa. The causes are multiple and relate to a combination of underproduction, internal mal-distribution and inappropriate task allocation, working conditions and brain drain. The HURAPRIM-project will develop innovative interventions and policies and address the HRH crisis. The objectives of the projects are to analyze the actual situation of HRH in Africa, to understand the complexity of the causes for the actual shortages in primary health care, to test interventions, strategies and policies that may improve the situation and to maximise networking and synergies. In order to achieve these goals, the project will assess the scope of the deficit in human resources and analyse the process of recruitment, undergraduate and postgraduate training, professional retention and unemployment and this for a variety of primary health care workers. The known complexity of the problem will prevent us from applying a 'one size fits all'-approach. Therefore, the project consortium brings together three experienced and committed European partners and five African partners, representing different parts of Africa and specific situations in HRH. The designed interventions will be tested out through case-studies in these partner countries. The interventions will target different levels (capacity building, recruitment and retention, task differentiation and cooperation with informal sector/traditional healers), will addresses (in various degrees of importance) aspects at the micro-, meso and macro-levels and will be designed with involvement of all stakeholders, political authorities, NGOs and especially the local population. The frame of reference for the analysis will look at relevance, equity, quality, efficiency, acceptability, sustainability, participation and feasibility. Acceptance by policy makers, in close cooperation with stakeholders and of the local communities will be a main focu'

Introduzione (Teaser)

A scarcity in human resources in health (HRH) in Africa due to multiple causes is in need of intervention to prevent further decline.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

The EU-funded project 'Human resources for primary health care in Africa' (http://www.huraprim.ugent.be (HURAPRIM)) is developing innovative interventions and policies including also ethical dimensions to address the HRH crisis. The objectives are to analyse the situation of HRH in Africa, and to understand the complexity of its causes of deficit.

HURAPRIM partners will design interventions, strategies and policies to improve the situation and maximise networking and synergies. The project brings together three European partners and six African partners in five countries, representing specific situations in HRH. The designed interventions will be tested through case studies in the partner countries, tailored to each country's individual HRH situation.

Various research tasks have been performed to arrive at a better understanding of the scope and causes of the deficit in HRH. This research includes a review of the literature on existing human resources and participatory research with project partners. A confidential enquiry into maternal and child deaths in Mali and Uganda has also been performed and migrant health workers have been interviewed.

Systematic reviews of the research conducted have resulted in a paper that provides a summary of identified issues. At the kick-off meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, ideas and first proposals of possible interventions were discussed.

Thus far, findings have shown that there are clear economic and political restraints affecting health workers' issues and demands. Bad work conditions, low salaries and a very high work load are also leading causes of declining HRH.

At present, there are noteworthy policy decisions being made in South Africa with regards to National Health Insurance (NHI) and the re-engineering of primary health care (PHC). One of the ways this is being achieved is through the launching of ward-based PHC outreach teams. The city of Johannesburg has collaborated with medical research centres to identify 20 pilot sites. These 20 sites belong to the most impoverished areas.

The HURAPRIM project will contribute to discussions and policy actions on an international level. All of the scheduled interventions are directly anchored on actual health policy commitments and plans. This will guarantee the practical relevance of every achievement of the project.