Health Workforce Shortages: Do Global Healthcare Dollars Equate to Workforce Sense?

Abstract

An adequate, skilled, and well-distributed workforce is essential to preserving the quality, accessibility, and sustainability of the global health system and efforts toward universal health coverage.1,2 Despite reduction of overall health workforce (HWF) shortage estimates to 10.2 million by 2030, from a previous estimate of 18 million, we are seeing HWF disparities more than double in the 47 countries identified in the World Health Organizationʼs (WHO) support and safeguard list.2 Midwives and their workforce equivalents contribute significantly to critical human resource pools needed to address maternal and infant health indicators worldwide, yet growth of jobs and educational programs continue to lag.2,3 Medical technology and foreign labor exchanges reflect migration patterns from low-to middle-income countries (LMICs) toward high-income countries (HICs) in North America and Western Europe, despite regulatory efforts and ethical guidelines regarding human resource trade.1,2 Natural disasters, conflict, and disease pandemics, such as COVID-19, further stress already compromised healthcare education, training, and workforce pools, in ways we have yet to fully understand.2,4 The responsibility for resolution to this crisis lies internationally, as the fluidity of medical technology and labor exchanges across international borders uniquely characterize the global workforce issues of our generation.1,5