DEVELOPMENT REPORT – Study Calls for Millions of New Health

DEVELOPMENT REPORT – Study Calls for Millions of New Health Workers
By Jill Moss¹

Broadcast: Monday, December 06, 2004

05 Dec 2004, 20:18 UTC

This is Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Development Report.

A new study says the world needs four million more health workers to improve public health. Southern Africa alone needs an estimated one million more health workers just to meet the Millennium² Development Goals. These United Nations goals aim to improve health by two thousand fifteen.

The study is by a group of health and development organizations called the Joint³ Learning Initiative. The Lancet in Britain published the results.

The researchers estimate that more than one hundred million people work in health care worldwide. But the study says only about one-fourth of these people are trained as doctors, nurses or midwives. The others are believed to be traditional, community or other kinds of health workers.

The study examines the way skilled professionals are spread throughout the world. For example, it says sub-Saharan Africa has one-tenth as many nurses and doctors for its population as Europe has. Italy has fifty times as many as Ethiopia has.

The study blames several things. First is the AIDS crisis. Health workers face more work and the danger of infection. The study says many no longer act as healers but as providers of care for the dying.

Second is the so-called "brain drain" of skilled workers from poor nations to countries that can pay them more. And third is a lack of enough investment in health workers in many countries.

But the study says official development assistance is finally increasing after ten years. Currently, about four thousand million dollars a year in foreign aid for health is spent on human resources, such as pay and training. The researchers say foreign aid providers must work together to better organize their investments. They say ten percent, or four hundred million dollars, should go toward workforce⁴ development.

The study also suggests better use of resources such as paraprofessionals. These are people trained to do much of the work of doctors, including some operations. But they are not doctors, so there is less chance they might leave for wealthier countries that need doctors.

Lincoln Chen at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, helped write this call for action. What we do or fail to do today, he says, will shape the direction of world health in the twenty-first century.

This VOA Special English Development Report was written by Jill Moss. This is Gwen Outen.

1 moss   

n.苔，藓，地衣

参考例句：

• Moss grows on a rock.苔藓生在石头上。
• He was found asleep on a pillow of leaves and moss.有人看见他枕着树叶和苔藓睡着了。

2 millennium   

n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世

参考例句：

• The whole world was counting down to the new millennium.全世界都在倒计时迎接新千年的到来。
• We waited as the clock ticked away the last few seconds of the old millennium.我们静候着时钟滴答走过千年的最后几秒钟。

3 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

4 workforce   

n.劳动大军，劳动力

参考例句：

• A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
• A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。