Scope and Purpose
In most of Africa, there are fewer than five doctors for every 100,000 people, and each year, 20,000 health professionals leave their posts to pursue jobs in urban areas or outside their own countries. If we are to meet MDG 5, innovative approaches to human resource planning and quality service provision are required to avert maternal death. One such approach is the development and deployment of non-physician clinicians (NPCs), cadres of health professionals who are not doctors but who provide significant clinical care even in the most remote areas. Despite the apparent broad use of NPCs in Africa, these health workers are hitherto virtually invisible in global discussions, regional policy documents and government strategic plans, and limited efforts to expand their training and scope of practice exist.
This Conference, Human Resources for Maternal Survival: Task-shifting to Non-Physician Clinicians, brought together countries with proven experience over many years in deploying NPCs to expand access to emergency obstetric care (EmOC) with countries that were either just beginning this process or had significant interest in utilising NPCs. The goals of the Conference were:
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To examine and share the innovative ways in which non-physician clinicians, including midwives, have been utilised to reduce maternal and newborn deaths in Africa; and
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To explore strategies for drawing on and transferring the lessons learned from various countries with experience using NPCs to other countries in Africa.
By building upon regional African experiences and research in the use of NPCs as a key strategy to provide quality EmOC services, the Conference sought to move towards developing a body of knowledge that would inform further efforts to scale up NPCs as part of the team of health professionals necessary to expand access to EmOC and meet MDG 5.