The Ministry of Health and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) come together in hosting the conference on Human Resources for Health (HRH). The meeting on Monday, December 6, 2010, in Lilongwe, Malawi, will draw participation from high level government policy makers, including the Ministry of Health, the Department of Public Service and Management, Parliament, local and international non-governmental organisations working in the health sector, community service organisations and training institutions, the international donor community, academics, journalists, and heath practitioners at all levels. 

In the past five years, Malawi’s long-term HRH policy strategies have addressed these problems by raising salaries, improving working conditions, and reinvesting in training institutions and students. These strategies have resulted in reopened health facilities, expanded HIV programs in prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) and antiretroviral treatment, collaborations with non-governmental partners such as MSF, and human resource innovations such as task-shifting to close gaps by sharing workloads among health workers. Despite recent successes, considerable work remains to be done. 

Recent global developments indicate that the health worker gap will widen, with two opposing stresses. First, global funding bodies are anticipating shortages in 2011 for HIV and tuberculosis (TB) programs. This could result in difficulty securing new medicines, reduced prevention and education programs, or difficulties attracting and retaining health worker staff to stay in Malawi. 

Secondly, new World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines call for the scaling-up of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment of HIV, by getting more HIV-positive people on ARV treatment sooner. 

The new guidelines require sustainable sources of high quality affordable medicines, health care professionals to implement the guidelines and track the performance of these strategies on their patients’ health, and a vibrant civil society who can effectively deliver messages, reduce stigma, and reinforce strategies at all community levels. 

While increasing and motivating the health workforce is one issue, the organization of health workers can be optimized to be able to effectively deliver HIV and other medial care and other health care services to the people of Malawi. 

The key to addressing current and future critical HRH shortages lays in building strong working relationships among people, academia, institutions, policy makers, funding bodies, the medical community, and civil society. Government departments can create policy landscapes which are conducive to building up health worker compensation, working conditions, and distribution across the country. 

Academic institutions train our health workers and maintain current knowledge and analyze future challenges. Funders pay for medical supplies, education, program running costs, and infrastructure development. Civil society is the most effective in maintaining ongoing contact with our communities, delivering messages that are easy for people to understand and follow. Meanwhile, local and international non-governmental organizations are effective in bringing new strategies, ideas, knowledge and resources into the country and to their various partners.