Developing world has acute shortage of health workers: WHO

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Developing countries are suffering from an acute shortage of doctors and nurses, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, appealing for more health services for the poor.

WHO's Margaret Chan said the shortage of health workers has jeopardized essential services such as immunization for children, care during pregnancy and childbirth, as well as treatments for HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria. "Globalization of the labor market has contributed to an acute shortage of health workers," said Chan, who was speaking in Singapore ahead of World Health Day on April 7. "The crisis is most severe in sub-Saharan Africa."

Thousands of doctors, nurses, and pharmacists from developing countries have emigrated to wealthier western nations with ageing populations in search of better-paid jobs -- a trend that many health experts consider a crippling brain drain for their home countries.

Warning about a growing rich-poor gap in terms of health services, Chan said that the health-care needs of poorer nations are also being overlooked by medical research and development (R&D), which is geared towards the rich.

"Huge gaps in health outcomes are growing wider, and these gaps divide rather precisely along the lines of poverty and wealth," she said. "Health needs in populations left behind by socio-economic progress are also left behind by the R&D agenda."

For instance, only a single class of broadly effective drugs is available for malaria even though developing countries report between 300-500 million cases each year, with an annual death toll of more than 1 million, Chan said.

WORK IN VILLAGES

More than 4 million more health professionals are urgently needed in 57 countries -- mostly in Africa and rural areas of Asia -- the United Nations said in its annual World Health Report 2006.

Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for about a quarter of the global disease burden, but has only 3 percent of the health workforce, according to WHO.

Ethiopia, for instance, has 21 nurses per 100,000 people, while the United States has 900 nurses per 100,000 people.

Chan said the medical sector needs to re-think its training of health-care workers so that more of them are willing to work in villages in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

"Fully-qualified doctors, nurses and pharmacists, we should not criticize them for looking for better opportunities in different places. It's their freedom," she said.

Currently, doctors in villages in Liberia in West Africa earn as little as $15 a month. Many end up working for non-government organizations or try to get out of the country, according to an aid worker familiar with the situation there.

(Additional reporting by Tan Ee Lyn in Hong Kong)