Podcast Episode
Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the decreased availability of health care workers. These health care worker shortages are a critical challenge faced by many countries, as they have disrupted the delivery of routine immunisation services largely due to reassignment and reduction in bandwidth due to pandemic response activities, illness among the immunisation workforce, and mandatory lockdown policies. This podcast episode features a conversation with three global immunisation experts to discuss solutions and best practices that countries around the world have employed to overcome or mitigate the impact of COVID-19 and the pandemic response on routine immunisation services.
Guests
BLOG HIGHLIGHTING KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM PODCAST
The Linked Immunisation Action Network hosted a podcast with health workforce experts to discuss the global health workforce challenges that have arisen as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. We wanted to hear how countries across the world have been addressing these challenges.
Key Messages:
- To prevent, diagnose, and treat COVID-19 while meeting the demands of routine immunisation activities, many countries sought to add more frontline health workers to their workforce.
- The challenge all countries faced was to reorient existing health workers while not worsening working conditions by increasing workload, working hours, and the risks to the well-being of health workers.
- Countries that had quality health workforce data readily available were able to mobilize and adapt more quickly to the needs of the pandemic.
- Solutions adopted by some countries to strengthen the mental health support provided to health workers include the creation of mental support phone lines, media campaigns to reduce the stigma associated with seeking and accessing support services, and institutional programmes to support mental health and manage stress.
- The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to urgently address the health workforce challenges that previously existed – to invest in new skills development, to increase the availability of health workers, decrease inequities in the distribution of the health workforce, and improve how they deliver health services.
RELATED RESOURCES
- Adjusting Primary Health Care to respond to COVID-19: Lessons from Colombia
- COVID-19 and the Health Workforce: Six Lessons
- Health Labour Market Analysis Guidebook
- Health Workforce Policy and Management in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic Response
- Human Resources for Health in 2030 in Indonesia
- Impact of COVID-19 on Human Resources for Health and Policy Response: The Case of Plurinational State of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru
- Supporting Mental Health Resilience of Malawi’s Health Workforce Using an AI-powered Chatbot
- Systematic Review of Performance-enhancing Health Worker Supervision Approaches iLow- and Middle-income Countries
- The Impact of COVID-19 on Health and Care Workers: A Closer Look at Deaths