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Microfinance Institutions for Better Health: How Can They Benefit Health Workers?

Mesrak BelatchewIn my work with CapacityPlus to strengthen the global health workforce, I explore ways to improve the support system for health workers in developing countries. The Global Health Council conference session on “Wealth and health: Leveraging microfinance for better health outcomes,” which was organized by SHOPS (Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector), made me reflect on how microfinance might be used to support health workers.

The session highlighted different ways of engaging microfinance institutions for addressing community health needs. For instance, in Nigeria, the community health insurance is enrolling increasing number of participants in the benefit scheme. Such interventions have demonstrated improvement in accessibility of health services with affordable premiums. These and other initiatives could play a key role in modifying the purpose of microfinance institutions, which are traditionally designed to provide loan options and support the poor segments of the population to access small businesses and sustain life. Read more »

The Key to Progress: Health Workforce Lessons from the Family Planning Movement

Maurice MiddlebergOne of the great privileges of my life has been to know bold leaders in family planning and reproductive health. As I listen to the current debates about “task shifting” and “task sharing,” I am reminded of the pioneering work of Mechai Viravaidya and Allan Rosenfield in Thailand dating back to the 1960s. Along with Chitt Hemachudha, they introduced innovative approaches to family planning that can inform our current efforts to improve the health of women and their families.

The situation in Thailand at that time was similar to that faced today by many countries with a health workforce crisis. The number of doctors was quite low and they were very inequitably distributed; this meant that in large swaths of the country the doctor-patient ratio was on the order of one doctor per hundred thousand people. The Thai government had become committed to reducing the rate of population growth and improving maternal and child health. This led to the obvious conclusion that a diverse set of providers would be needed to make family planning widely available. Read more »

Thoughts on Motivating Health Workers

Maurice MiddlebergThis post was originally published on the IntraHealth International blog.

At the recent Global Health Council Conference, I had the great pleasure of moderating an IntraHealth/CapacityPlus-sponsored event on health worker motivation featuring two extraordinary people: Daniel Pink, the author of the best-selling Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, and Dr. Barbara Stilwell, director of technical leadership at IntraHealth.

Health leaders and managers wrestle constantly with the challenge of motivating health workers. Health workers must be retained, productive, and caring if the huge deficits in access to health workers are to be addressed. Pink and Stilwell brought to bear their very considerable expertise on this question. Read more »

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