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 »
ars ago I arrived in Bamako, Mali, and discovered a capital city settling into relative calm following a military-led coup. My first images of Bamako were of cows, cars, and citizens grazing, grinding gears, and gridlocked on Bamako’s main artery through town—the Route de Koulikoro. 
I still find out most of my important health workforce information via word of mouth. Yes, I regularly read the latest journal articles and subscribe to half a dozen human resources for health (HRH) and health systems listservs, follow over 250 people on Twitter, and receive RSS updates from several HRH websites, but I never seem to get the information I really need. Who is working to strengthen health managers? What country is interested in designing a retention package for its health workers? What funder might be interested in funding a survey of how health workers currently use their mobile phones and how they would like to use them to do their jobs better? In this digital world there has to be a better way for us to share information. 
