HIV

Dominican Republic Human Resources for Health

The Office of Health Systems in USAID’s Global Health Bureau selected CapacityPlus’s collaboration with the Dominican Republic as one of its Top Ten Health Systems Strengthening Cases. CapacityPlus supported the Ministry of Health in a process of payroll reform and increased transparency in budgeting practices. The process revealed nearly 10,000 ghost workers—individuals who receive a salary but are not working—who represented approximately 30% of the Ministry’s budget. The Ministry began a phased approach to clean its payroll by reclaiming the salaries of the ghost workers, resulting in savings of over $6 million annually. These savings are being used to improve HIV and other health services through hiring of new health workers, increasing salaries by 10% to provide more equitable remuneration and increase motivation, eliminating user fees, and investing in other health sector reforms, such as setting up a better procurement process for HIV testing kits and antiretroviral drugs. In turn, this reinvestment is contributing to improved service delivery and health status.

Transitioning Health Care Worker Support: A Resource Framework from the PEPFAR Experience

To expand access to HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and treatment services, the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has been partially or wholly supporting health workers in over 30 countries. To assist PEPFAR country teams to work with stakeholders and transition health worker support to country-owned entities, USAID and CapacityPlus conducted key informant interviews in countries where transition was underway. The interviews led to the development of the Health Care Worker Transition Framework and an interactive website that compiles key questions, case studies, lessons learned, tools, and resources to encourage PEPFAR country team engagement and discussions on transition. Recognizing that the transition process is complex and nonlinear, five interlinked components should be incorporated according to context: stakeholder engagement, strategic information, finance, policy, and human resources management. Presented at the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia, on July 24, 2014, this poster summarizes the five elements of the framework along with key questions and sample resources.

Occupational Segregation, Gender Essentialism and Male Primacy as Major Barriers to Equity in HIV Care Giving: Findings from Lesotho

This article in the International Journal for Equity in Health draws on research conducted during the Capacity Project, the predecessor to CapacityPlus.

Gender segregation of occupations has been recognized as a major source of inequality worldwide with implications for the development of robust health workforces. In sub-Saharan Africa, gender inequalities are particularly acute in HIV/AIDS caregiving (90% of which is provided in the home), where women and girls make up the informal (and mostly unpaid) workforce. Men's and boy's entry into HIV/AIDS caregiving in greater numbers would both increase the equity and sustainability of national and community-level HIV/AIDS caregiving and mitigate health workforce shortages, but notions of gender essentialism and male primacy make this far from inevitable. The Capacity Project partnered with the Lesotho Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in a study of the gender dynamics of HIV/AIDS caregiving to account for men's absence in HIV/AIDS caregiving and investigate ways in which they might be recruited into the community and home-based care workforce. This article presents findings and recommendations resulting from the study.

HIV Care for Health Workers: Perceptions and Needs

Provides results from a participatory study on health workers' needs for HIV care and makes policy recommendations based on health workers' self-reported information.

TAGS: AIDS, HIV, Nurses
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