Access to health care has become one of the key global issues these days. Even though local governments claim to do their best in the field, there are still a lot of healthcare issues that the World Health Organization is keeping it eye on for 2013.
1. Emerging role of frontline health workers
Front line health workers are doctors, nurses, pharmacists and midwives that love and serve people living in very remote areas in developing countries. Intra-Health International, the founders of the Frontline Health Workers Coalition, is expected to demand more support and funds for frontline health workers in 2013.
2. Need for more community health workers
The Global Health Evidence Summit of the U.S. Agency for International Development claims that at the moment the world’s healthcare systems are short of more than 4 million motivated and skilled health workers. However, the agency plans to launch a number of campaigns through 2013 that would train more than one million health workers.
3. Revival of interest in family planning
The London Summit on Family Planning has infused funding to the tune of $2.6 billion to various projects that aim to make voluntary contraception lucrative and accessible. By training health workers to administer the most modern and foolproof contraception methods through 2013, health goals like reduction of maternity deaths by 79,000, 26 million fewer abortions and reduction of unwanted pregnancies to 26 million from 80 million would be well within reach.
4. Helping more children to live longer
A UNICEF program called “Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed” presented a progress report in 2012 which claimed that in the year 1990 approximately 12 million children under the age of five died annually from easily preventable diseases. Thanks to the implementation of the program worldwide, the number had dropped to 6.9 million by the year 2011. UNICEF’s Child Survival Call to Action held in June 2012 saw representatives from 80 countries pledge to try to reduce the existing child mortality rate of to 51 deaths per 1,000 live births to 20 or fewer deaths per 1,000 live births by the year 2035. 2013 would be a crucial year in implementing the policies that would help achieve that goal.
5. getting closer to winning the fight against AIDS
As governments around the world become all the more committed to combating HIV/AIDS, the world faces a shortage of skilled health workers that are equipped with the right tools to help people prevent and fight the disease. In 2013, WHO’s Global Health Workforce Alliance along with other local and international AIDS care agencies are expected to spend more time and resources in training existing health workers to take on the specialty while recruiting more health workers for the cause.