Linking Faith-Based Health Care with Ministries of Health

February 2011 by Wilma Gormley
TAGS: Faith-Based Organizations, Health Systems Strengthening, Second Global Forum on HRH

Wilma GormleyOver the past year and a half, CapacityPlus has supported faith-based organizations’ (FBOs) ability to manage their health workforces and provide high quality care to underserved populations. Recently, we held a side session as part of the Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health to help strengthen linkages between the FBO community and ministries of health and provide strategies and tactics for how to bring about this increased integration.

With these objectives in mind, the group discussion centered on two key questions:

  • What should the FBO community do to promote the integration and linkages between them and national-level health workforce policies and practices?
  • What should workforce decision-makers and human resources professionals within ministries of health do to strengthen linkages with the FBO community?


Christian Health Associations
In his presentation, James McCaffery focused on CapacityPlus’s work with the Africa Christian Health Associations Platform to strengthen health workforce policies and practices of the FBO health care community. Dr. Samuel Mwenda, chair of the Africa Christian Health Association Platform and general secretary of Christian Health Association of Kenya focused on why it is important to improve the integration of national-level ministry of health policies and practices with those of the FBO community.

Diverse participation
Regional health directorAmong our participants, there was an attorney from Papua New Guinea, who worked on policy and legal issues to promote these linkages. Another participant had served as a physician and hospital director of FBO hospitals in Nepal for over 25 years. A participant from mainland China mentioned that although he didn’t appear to have FBO hospitals in his region, he did have nongovernmental and community-operated hospitals that were not actually part of the public health care delivery system.

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Photo 1 courtesy of Wilma Gormley. Photo 2 by Trevor Snapp (Regional health director, Mali)