printable versionMedical leaders decry AIDS worker shortage
More than 90 distinguished leaders in medicine, including Dean Philip Pizzo, MD, and pediatrics professor Paul Wise, MD, MPH, have called on President George W. Bush to create a five-year initiative to address the critical shortage of health-care workers needed to care for patients with HIV/AIDS in the developing world.
"We urge the U.S. to continue its life-saving leadership in fighting AIDS and other global health problems by adopting a bold initiative to address the health workforce crisis," the leaders said in a letter to the president on Dec. 1, World AIDS Day.
According to the World Health Organization, some 57 countries—more than half of them in sub- Saharan Africa—face a dire shortage of physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other health-care professionals to combat AIDS and other major diseases, such as malaria and tuberculosis. WHO estimates an additional 4 million workers are needed to meet global health needs.
Pizzo, Wise and other signatories of the letter called on President Bush to establish programs to help train and retain motivated workers, including community-level health workers in rural areas.
At the same time, they urged the president and Congress to develop a parallel strategy to address worker shortages in the United States by increasing the number of physicians and nurses trained in this country.