The World Heath Organization (WHO) is a United Nations agency that is responsible for the provision of public health internationally including carrying out of programs that will help in disease control and improving of quality of human life. This organization was started in 1948 and has its headquarters are located in Geneva, Switzerland.
The main responsibility of this organization is to provide support and guidance to countries in matters concerning health by sponsoring research programs carried out to prevent and treat diseases, they are also involved in assessing heath trends, develop and transfer health technology, setting standards for health research projects being carried out and also setting the global health standards.
The organization has successfully completed various projects that include the eradication of small pox which was an endemic disease in the late 1960s a disease which would have seen approximately two million people die from it.
Other achievements include bringing together international efforts to control outbreaks’ of deadly diseases that include SARS, Tuberculosis, Malaria Swine flu and AIDS. In addition to disease eradication, the WHO also drums up the members of public to embrace a healthy living style by promoting and supporting campaigns that are health related. (Simmons et al 2007)
Every organization is said to bear with issues that affect the organization and one such issue is the external environment that has external forces affecting the healthcare of the organization, an example of these issues is finances (funding).
The WHO is funded by levies collected from its 191member countries, the World Bank, other donor governments (extra budgetary funds) among them Japan, countries in Europe and North America as well as public and private entities.
This means that for the organization to continue getting funds from higher donors and avoid financial constraints, the organization must prioritize their policies of health projects that would preferably attract large sum of donation from major donors, a recent example is when the organization took part in the campaign restricting of tobacco advertising aimed at reducing tobacco related diseases instead of working on its vaccination as critics argue.
For this reason, the developing countries needs are neglected despite the fact they are the ones to requiring their services simply because they can’t afford to raise large sums of money.
Another issue that is of concern is the issue of workforce. The WHO has been on its fore front trying to help health systems of various governments in the developing countries in dealing with the crisis in terms of shortage of human workforce in the health sector.
This shortage in many countries is usually due poor management system bodies that are concerned with the workers welfare thus these people tend to move in search of better working standards, increase in pay, and improved living conditions in relation to development. (Simmons et al 2007.)
Health workforce crisis is a major concern to the world health organization agency mainly because it will result to difficulties in achieving the set health goals to an extent of canceling of on going health program projects. Those who to be affected the most are the many communities who depend on the well trained personnel’s to offer the important primary health services.
As one of the solutions, the WHO has launched a program that supports its member countries to increase the number of health workers in remote and rural areas where the shortage crisis is hardly felt by improving their retention schemes.
The important part of the program is teaching the countries various bodies concerned with health how they could expand their knowledge on having effective strategies and policies that address matters concerning the equal distribution of health workers around the country especially the rural and remote areas.in 2004, WHO was requested by the World Heath Assembly (WHA) its governing body to develop a protocol to use in recruitment of health practitioners internationally. The guidelines were to apply to all health workers and would be carried out on voluntarily basis.
Important constituents of the guidelines includes, assisting countries facing shortage of health workers, monitor migration of health workers by investing on research and information systems, information gathered would be used to set policies evidently-based in addition the WHO member states would have to advance the conditions under which the people in the health sector are working under using their individual resources. To sustain the health workforce the governments could start education programs and better retaining schemes.
Reference
Simmons R., Fajans P., Ghiron, L., World Health Organization. (2007)Scaling up health service delivery: from pilot innovations to policies and programmes Nonserial Publication. New York: World Health Organization.