Have you noticed the large number of health worker strikes happening all over the world—in Sudan, Israel, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Spain, Montenegro, the Canary Islands, Australia, Argentina, and other places? As I read the news the past few weeks, I started thinking about the impact these strikes have on the people in need of care as well as the intrinsic right of any worker to fight for fair treatment, wages, and working conditions.
Strikes aren’t always a simple matter of salary, but in most recent examples I’ve read about, money was the core cause. While we can’t pretend that strikes by health workers don’t put innocent lives at risk, health care providers are still entitled to the same rights as other workers. Many health workers have poorly paid jobs with inadequate resources, the threat of violence, and a high risk of infection from HIV or other infectious diseases. The health and well-being of any country’s people depends on these workers, so it is difficult to understand why countries would risk a strike rather than do everything they can to provide adequate salaries, or in some cases even a basic living wage. Read more »
Around the world nurses are often the front line of the formal medical system, providing care to underserved areas and filling in where and when doctors are in short supply. Yet it has been estimated that sub-Saharan Africa needs 600,000 additional nurses just to meet the 
m standards rooted in the Geneva Conventions to protect health facilities, health workers, and the patients served during armed conflict, and to enable health professionals to act consistently with their ethical obligations, assaults on and interference with health functions are all too common in war. Aside from the human toll they take, these attacks often compromise the ability to deliver care to populations in great need, impede efforts to reconstruct health systems after war, and lead to the flight of health workers whose presence in a time of great social stress is essential.
Remote regions of the world often face the most challenges accessing health services and health workers. In the frontier areas on the border of Bolivia and Peru, these difficulties are anticipated to intensify with the completion of the transoceanic highway. Intended to link South American ports on the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, the highway will open this rural frontier to increased commerce, traffic and migration, as well as an increased demand for health services. Consequently, with the opening of the highway, incidence of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and other communicable diseases will likely increase. 
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Mental health is not always on the forefront of people’s minds when they think about global health and the critical shortage of trained health workers. But the need is there.
It was a great opportunity for me to sit among hundreds of human resources professionals from Kenya and the East Africa region during the recent 16th National human resources management forum organized by the Kenya Institute of Human Resource Management (IHRM) in Nairobi. The forum was graced with highly experienced and resourceful facilitators from different sectors and it was very exciting to learn from their experiences, successes, and challenges. 
