Source: Ministry targets rural health worker shortages with new system – herald
Rumbidzayi Zinyuke
HEALTH AUTHORITIES are developing a new classification system to identify health facilities struggling to attract and retain workers, as it moves to address the uneven distribution of health professionals between urban and rural areas.
The system will classify health institutions according to the level of hardship in the areas where they operate, allowing the Government to target staff deployment and incentives towards facilities facing the greatest challenges.
Health Service Commission (HSC) vice chairperson Dr Abigail Kangwende said the initiative was necessary because about two-thirds of Zimbabwe’s health workforce is concentrated in urban areas, leaving rural and hard-to-reach communities with inadequate access to skilled health personnel.
She said the classification would be based on a range of factors, including road conditions, electricity and other conditions affecting the ability of health facilities to attract and retain workers.
“It could be road conditions; it could be electricity and many others,” she said.
“It is a composite index of many different variables. This classification will enable implementation of evidence-based workforce attraction and retention strategies and will also assist with targeted deployment to hard-to-reach areas of our workforce.”
Under the proposed system, facilities facing the most severe challenges would be identified as “Red”, while those facing moderate and lower levels of hardship would fall under “Amber and Green” categories.
The system is expected to help the Government and development partners direct incentives towards facilities that have historically struggled to retain health workers because of remoteness, poor infrastructure and limited resources.
Dr Kangwende said the approach would help address the persistent imbalance in the distribution of health workers across the country.
“It will improve equity in workforce distribution. This three-tier categorisation system will guide Government and partners in prioritising staff incentives at health facilities historically shunned due to remoteness and resource limitation,” she said.
Dr Kangwende said the Government’s health workforce expansion needed to be accompanied by better deployment strategies and incentives for workers serving in difficult locations.
It is envisaged that the red-amber-green system will provide a basis for identifying where such interventions are most urgently required.
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