Analysis of Health Workforce Retention and Attraction Policies in Lao PDR
Worldwide, Lao PDR has been identified among 57 countries with a critical shortage and skewed distribution of its health workforce, especially in remote and rural areas (Guilbert 2006, World Bank 2015). Healthcare education is provided by the publi...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2015/05/24482410/lao-peoples-democratic-republic-health-human-resource-study-analyses-health-workforce-retention-attraction-policies http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22109 |
| Summary: | Worldwide, Lao PDR has been identified
among 57 countries with a critical shortage and skewed
distribution of its health workforce, especially in remote
and rural areas (Guilbert 2006, World Bank 2015). Healthcare
education is provided by the public sector through nine
public health training institutes in the country: The
University of Health Sciences (UHS) in Vientiane Capital
provides medical related programs including medicine,
dentistry, pharmacy, medical technology, nursing basic
sciences and post graduate studies, with the other
institutions located at provincial levels: three Regional
Public Health Colleges, four Provincial Public Health
Schools and one Nursing School. The annual output from these
institutions is approximately 2,000 (Department of
Organization and Personnel (DOP), 2013). This study focuses
on supply-side policies to determine the key challenges and
policy implications regarding improved availability and
retention of staff in remote areas. This possibly stems
from, among other reasons, the following: (a) limited
government quotas to recruit and place health workers in
rural areas (i.e. in 2013 1,045 recruitment quotas were
allocated to MOH, of which 882 (84.4 percent) were given to
provinces, districts and health centers nationwide); (b)
health workers’preference to work in urban areas with better
income and professional career development opportunities;
and (c) low self-confidence of new graduates to work
independently in rural areas which is attributable to
insufficient clinical practice during training, due in part
to the excessive number of student intakes to training
institutes. The shortage of middle and high level health
workers at primary and secondary health care facility levels
leads to a major gap in access to quality health care
services between urban and rural areas. |
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