Global health care may be widening in response to the HIV epidemic, says a World Health Organization (WHO) report published in the December 13 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine (plusnews.org, 12/12).
Analyzing the report, the PlusNews web service notes that in many sub-Saharan African countries—such as Malawi—staff shortages create a barrier to proper care, with medical support staff seeing as many as 200 patients a day. WHO has already implemented training programs in 22 countries to train support staff in basic surgical procedures to alleviate this strain on specialized medical personnel.
The article notes a shortage of 4 million workers in the medical field worldwide, and that WHO is working to fortify the workforce’s HIV knowledge through treatment and prevention programs. The organization is also focusing on retaining existing workers and “task shifting”—which would allow doctors to delegate tasks to less specialized medical staff.
The plan, which is called Treat, Train, Retain, will be launched in mid-January 2008 at the first-ever worldwide summit on task shifting, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
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Beth Benne, RN, is HIV negative, but
the virus has impacted her life. She currently supervises a biannual HIV/AIDS awareness week as
the director of the student health center at Pierce College, a
community commuter school in Woodland Hills, California.
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Overheard in the Women's Forum
"I recently met a guy who is negative. I did tell him about my status and he decided to kiss me anyway (we didn't go further than that). But a day later, he called and said that he actually had a mouth ulcer that time when we kissed and he was very worried. Asked if he can get the virus from me that way. For that moment, I felt so insulted and yet I felt so bad. It was my first time having a contact with a "negative" guy."
