Africa triples health workforce in 10 years, but demand still outstrips supply

By Ochieng' Ogodo

 

[NAIROBI] African countries increased their health workforce from 1.6 million in 2013 to 5.1 million in 2022, alongside significant improvements in training and data use, a recent report by the World Health Organization (WHO) Africa Region Office reveals.

The report released on 6 May provides a detailed examination of the dramatic shifts and continuous difficulties in the health workforce in Africa over the past ten years. It also highlights important patterns and future predictions critical to the continent's public health policies and economic stability.

The report indicates that national health workforce strategies increased by 44%, from 27 countries in 2018 to 39 countries in 2022.

Dr. James Avoka Asamani, a health economist working with WHO as a team leader for the health workforce, says that African countries now have better data and insights about their health workforce than before.

“Many countries can now track their health workforce and are using data evidence to develop their strategies. More than 80 percent of the countries now have workforce strategies and policies to address their workforce challenges,” Asamani said.

The report says: “In 2013, countries could track and report data for 26% of occupations across all 47 countries. This improved significantly to 75% in 2019 and 81% in 2022, [due] to all countries in the region adopting to implement the national health workforce account.”

It highlights that countries have invested in training health workers through over 4000 training institutions and programmes, increasing the capacity to train health workers by 70% from 150,000 graduates in 2018 to more than 255,000 in 2022. Of this capacity, the private sector contributes at least 40%.

Also, the report says that the number of doctors being trained in Africa each year has increased to over 39,850 from 6,000 in 2005, and the number of nurses and midwives trained annually has increased to over 151,300 from 26,000 in 2005.

According to the report, the average number of physicians, nurses, midwives, dentists, and pharmacists in the African region was 27 per 10,000 inhabitants as of 2022, a rise of more than double from 11 per cent in 2013 and a 14% gain from 2018.

“This highlights the improved availability of qualified and skilled health workers to provide much-needed health services to the population in need,” the report says.

However, looking at each country’s disease burden and comparing it to the workforce available, Asamani said, there is still a shortage of doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists and pharmacists.

“We have also seen that only six countries control more than 70 percent of our capacity to produce health workers. That means having many countries that cannot produce enough health workers,” Asamani said.

Lack of absorption of trained medical personnel is another of the many challenges highlighted in the report.

According to Asamani, on average, 27 percent of trained medical personnel are unemployed across the continent and are looking for jobs.

Since 2018, he says, at least 14 nations have had at least four health worker strikes annually due to dissatisfaction with working conditions, which is another critical issue affecting the continent's health sector.

Asamani added: “The combined effect of inadequate working conditions and unemployment is pushing health workers to look for better jobs elsewhere, particularly in high-income countries.”

Of the 80 percent of countries with plans and strategies to address their workforce situations, more than half have no financial commitment to help address the needs.

The report recommends some actions and according to Asamani, these include, continuous expansion of training programmes in line with population health needs and the creation of more employment opportunities for health workers, especially in rural and underserved areas.

Also, there is a need to work with stakeholders in health, education, labour, financial and the private sectors and development partners to align efforts so that there is no duplication of energies so that they can bring in more resources.