Zambia

This paper reports the findings of the Zambian study pertaining to human resources for health, including issues with high staff vacancies, high rates of absenteeism and tardiness, impact on patients and the coping mechanisms health workers are employing to augment their incomes. [adapted from summary]

This paper compiles recent evidence on the Zambian health labor market and provides baseline information on HRH to support the government address its HRH challenges. In addition, the paper analyzes the available evidence on the national health labor market to better understand the number, distribution, and performance of HRH in Zambia and explains HRH outcomes by mapping, assessing, and analyzing pre-service education and labor market dynamics and well as the core factors influencing these dynamics. [from author]

This paper describes the way the HRH establishment is distributed in the different provinces of Zambia, with a view to assess the dimension of shortages and of imbalances in the distribution of health workers by province and by level of care. [from introduction]

In Zambia, a study was carried out with the aim to: explore the impact of HIV/AIDS on health workers, describe their coping mechanisms and recommend supportive measures. [from author]

This paper discusses the background of HRH shortages in the listed countries, as well as plans for steps to resolve the issue. [from publisher]

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that two training programs for midwives in Zambia would reduce incrementally 7-day neonatal mortality rates for low-risk institutional deliveries. [adapted from abstract]

This article outlines a prospective evaluation of the effectiveness of using community health workers as delivery points for ACT and RDTs in the home management of malaria in two districts in Zambia. [from abstract]

The objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of these adherence support workers in adherence counseling, treatment retention for people on antiretroviral therapy and addressing inadequate human resources at health facilities. [from abstract]

This article shares experiences and insights gained, primarily in Zambia but also in Malawi, from the implementation of the “Caring for Caregivers” projects in Zambia and Malawi. [from author]

A birth attendant training program that has been shown in a multinational trial to reduce stillbirth and perinatal mortality rates among neonates weighing at least 1.5 kilograms - most of them born outside of hospitals, also reduced mortality among infants of all weights born in Zambian clinics. [from author]

The aim of this study was to determine the use of different types of HIV testing services and to investigate perceptions and experiences of these services with a particular emphasis on the provider initiated testing in three selected districts in Kenya, Tanzania, and, Zambia.

This study aimed to determine the level of health-care workers’ compliance with infection prevention guidelines and identify factors that influence compliance at Ronald Ross General Hospital, Mufulira District. [from abstract]

The study analyzes the deficiency that seem to exist between nurse curricula
and nurse practices and explore chronic care models or approaches evident among Zambian General Nursing Council (GNC) final year nursing students and GNC trained practicing nurses. The study also assesses how they formulate these chronic care models or approaches. [from author]

The Master of Medicine program is the clinical specialist postgraduate training started in response to increased training costs of specialists abroad, brain drain and an increasing demand for local specialists. The program’s objective were to produce specialists locally who would be easier to retain and able to work in district hospitals. The training costs would be proportionately less. This study reviews the outcome of the postgraduate program and assess whether the original intentions have been met to date. [adapted from introduction]

This study aimed to measure students’ perspectives on the teaching quality of the school of medicine at University of Zambia and concurrently measure health professionals educators perspectives on the need for teaching courses for health professionals educators (educational skills training). The results are discussed as indications for educational skills training for educators in health professionals’ education. [from abstract]

The human resource crisis facing the Zambian health sector has potential to derail existing health programs including millennium development goals. This paper will highlight the underpinning factors, analyze current interventions and propose alternative solutions to this crisis. [from abstract]

This desk review has put together a situation analysis of the professional practice environment in Zambia today, bringing out a picture of unhealthy, unproductive work environments. [from summary]

This study analyses and reports trends in HIV and non-HIV ambulatory service workloads on clinical staff in urban and rural district level facilities. [from abstract]

To address the HRH crisis, the Ministry of Health in Zambia plans to double the annual number of health training graduates in the next five years to increase the supply of health workers. This article determined the feasibility and costs of doubling training institution output through an individual school assessment framework. [adapted from abstract]

Shortages of health workers are obstacles to utilising global health initiative (GHI) funds effectively in Africa. This paper reports and analyses two countries’ health workforce responses during a period of large increases in GHI funds. [from abstract]

The MOH has developed a human resources for health strategic plan to address the health workforce crisis through improved training, hiring, and retention. This study used a model to forecast the size of the public sector health workforce in Zambia over the next ten years to identify a combination of interventions that would expand the workforce to meet staffing targets. [adapted from abstract]

Low uptake of voluntary HIV counselling and testing (VCT) in sub-Saharan Africa is raising acceptability concerns which might be associated with ways by which it is offered. This study investigated the acceptability of home-based delivery of counselling and HIV testing in urban and rural populations in Zambia where VCT has been offered mostly from local clinics. [from abstract]

The HRH country profiles serve as a tool for systematically presenting the HRH situation, policies and management. They are expected to help to monitor trends, generate regional HRH overviews, provide comparable data between countries and identify points for focused action in countries. They will also serve for a comparison of countries’ responses to similar HRH challenges.

The objectives of this study include documenting the role of the private for-profit sector in voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) service delivery; establishing whether there are significant differences in the quality of VCT services, particularly in counseling and referral practices, between public, private for-profit, NGO, and mission providers; measuring key VCT service statistics at facilities within each sector; and identify best practices from each sector. [adapted from introduction]

This commentary paper highlights changing patterns of outward migration of Zambian nurses. The aim is to discuss these pattern changes in the light of policy developments in Zambia and in receiving countries. [from abstract]

The objective of this study was to analyse in what way HRH recruitment, deployment and retention at the district level are influenced by external funding; and to what extent this is in line with national and district policies and strategies. [from abstract]

We conducted a survey among nurses and midwives working at district level in Sudan and Zambia to determine their roles and functions in polio eradication and measles elimination programs. [from abstract]

Well-documented shortages of health care workers in sub-Saharan Africa are exacerbated by the increased human resource demands of rapidly expanding HIV care and treatment programmes. The successful continuation of existing programmes is threatened by health care worker burnout and HIV-related illness. This article details the results of a study conducted among health providers in the Lusaka public health sector. [adapted from abstract]

The Zambia Prevention, Care and Treatment Partnership began training and placing community volunteers as lay counsellors in order to complement the efforts of the health care workers in providing HIV counselling and testing services. These volunteers are trained using the standard national counselling and testing curriculum. This study was conducted to review the effectiveness of lay counsellors in addressing staff shortages and the provision of HIV counselling and testing services. [from abstract]

This report describes field experiences with task shifting in Lusaka, Zambia, where a large public-sector ART program has enrolled over 71,000 HIV-infected adults and children across 19 program sites. It advocates a comprehensive, three-pronged approach to task-shifting that comprises training, on-site clinical mentoring, and continuous quality assurance. A structured approach is important so that clinical care is not compromised when clinical duties are initially shifted to less specialized health professionals. [from introduction]