Improving palliative care in Africa

doi:10.1136/bmj.a1566

Published 23 September 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1566
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1566

Editorials

Making a Difference

Improving palliative care in Africa

Selection, training, and retention of community based volunteersis a priority

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

In March 2008 the first Global Forum on Human Resources forHealth was held in Uganda. Two subsequent documents—theKampala Declaration and the Global Action Plan for Human Resourcesfor Health¹ ²—have established a 10 year plan for a coordinatednational, regional, and global response to the worldwide healthworkforce crisis.

The existence of this crisis, which jeopardises attaining theMillennium Development Goals for many resource poor countries,is unquestionable. Dr Francis Omaswa, executive director ofthe World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Health WorkforceAlliance, stated before the meeting, "The crisis is characterisedby widespread global shortages, maldistribution of personnelwithin and between countries, migration of local health workers,and poor working conditions."³

Sub-Saharan Africa is the worst affected region—it includes36 of the 57 countries that have an acute crisis in terms ofhuman resources for health.⁴ Although it contains 11% of theworld’s population and 24% of the . . . [Full text of this article]

Richard A Powell, monitoring and evaluation and research manager, Faith N Mwangi-Powell, executive director

¹ African Palliative Care Association, Kampala, Uganda

tony.powell@apca.co.ug