New coalition promotes investment in health workers

2012-01-12 13:46

分享到

 

Get Flash Player

New coalition promotes investment in health workers

Sixteen major non-governmental organizations have launched a new initiative to add one million health care workers in developing countries.

The new Frontline Health Workers Coalition says training more community-level workers is the most cost effective way to save lives, speed progress on global health threats and promote US economic and strategic interests.

Mary Beth Powers is chair of the coalition. "Around the world, addressing the kind of basic killers of children, for example, pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and the problems that parents face, including moms who die in pregnancy and childbirth, women and men affected by HIV/AIDS. All of those people need one absolute thing to improve their condition. And that is having a health worker close to them."

Powers is also the head of Save the Children's Newborn and Child Survival Campaign.

"The goal is really to put a million of these frontline health workers on the ground in the next four years by the end of the period where we're measuring progress against the Millennium Development Goals. And we're asking the US government to contribute one quarter of those, which is 250,000 additional health workers where they're most needed," she said.

The US is already heavily involved in training health workers through its development agency, USAID, and the National Institutes of Health. Training and funding would also come from major corporations and other donor countries.

Saving lives

Powers said frontline workers include community health workers, midwives, village pharmacists, physicians' assistants, nurses and doctors who work in community-level clinics. She said they save lives.

"Every year, for example, 7 and a half million children die, many from preventable or treatable causes. And a million health workers reaching those children could dramatically reduce those deaths each year," she said.

She added they're a big reason why child mortality has declined 37 percent in the last 20 years.

Angela Nguku is a midwife in Kenya and coordinator for AMREF, the African Medical and Research Foundation. She said training more health care workers would have a major beneficial effect in her country.

"We are going to be saving lives. We are going to be stopping the disabilities and the deaths that we have seen. And at the end of the day we are going to see families united, children going to school, children growing up to maturity because they're not going to die because of diseases that could be prevented if we had health workers. And we are going to see more economically empower nations because if I'm healthy, I'm strong. Then I'm able to work and be productive for the nation," she said.

Overwhelming

Nguku works in many of Kenya's hard-pressed areas, such as Turkana. That northern region, which is normally dry, was baked and parched by a long, severe drought. Sometimes, she said, she feels overwhelmed by a community's medical needs.

"I just watch and see helplessly because I am attending to this particular mother and there's a child there convulsing because they have malaria or pneumonia. I have a mother coming for immunization maybe fortetanus because she's pregnant or even another mother who's bleeding who has delivered, but I cannot leave this particular one. Sometimes I wish I had extra hands to attend to this particular mother, but I'm not able to do so because I am the only one in the facility and they have so many patients waiting for me," she said.

Nguku said more health workers would help Kenya reach the Millennium Development Goals and help the country grow in general.

Frontline Health Workers Coalition chair Mary Beth Powers describes those community health workers as heroes.

"They really walk the walk. And I think I'm personally, as a public health person, inspired by the service that these people provide to their communities often without a great deal of thanks, often with very low salaries or sometimes as volunteers," she said.

The coalition includes the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Family Care International, the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care and RESULTS.

pneumonia: 肺炎

diarrhea: 腹泻,痢疾

malaria: 疟疾

tetanus: 破伤风

Related Stories:

A room where nurses learn how not to get hurt

Doctor 'brain drain' costs Africa $2.2 billion

Wisconsin excels in job creation

US postal service on 'brink of default'

(来源:VOA 编辑:Rosy)

 

分享到

中国日报网英语点津版权说明:凡注明来源为“中国日报网英语点津:XXX(署名)”的原创作品,除与中国日报网签署英语点津内容授权协议的网站外,其他任何网站或单位未经允许不得非法盗链、转载和使用,违者必究。如需使用,请与010-84883561联系;凡本网注明“来源:XXX(非英语点津)”的作品,均转载自其它媒体,目的在于传播更多信息,其他媒体如需转载,请与稿件来源方联系,如产生任何问题与本网无关;本网所发布的歌曲、电影片段,版权归原作者所有,仅供学习与研究,如果侵权,请提供版权证明,以便尽快删除。

中国日报网双语新闻

扫描左侧二维码

添加Chinadaily_Mobile
你想看的我们这儿都有!

中国日报双语手机报

点击左侧图标查看订阅方式

中国首份双语手机报
学英语看资讯一个都不能少!

关注和订阅

本文相关阅读
人气排行
搜热词
 
 
精华栏目
 

阅读

词汇

视听

翻译

口语

合作

 

关于我们 | 联系方式 | 招聘信息

Copyright by chinadaily.com.cn. All rights reserved. None of this material may be used for any commercial or public use. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. 版权声明:本网站所刊登的中国日报网英语点津内容,版权属中国日报网所有,未经协议授权,禁止下载使用。 欢迎愿意与本网站合作的单位或个人与我们联系。

电话:8610-84883645

传真:8610-84883500

Email: languagetips@chinadaily.com.cn