INTRODUCTION As part of ongoing efforts to restructure the health sector and improve health care quality, the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS) in Namibia sought to update staffing norms for health facilities. To establish an evidence base for the new norms, the MoHSS supported the first-ever national application of the Workload Indicators of Staffing Need (WISN) method, a human re...

BACKGROUND In Malawi, the dramatic shortage of human resources for health is negatively impacted by HIV-related morbidity and mortality among health workers and their relatives. Many staff find it difficult to access HIV care through regular channels due to fear of stigma and discrimination. In 2006, two workplace initiatives were implemented in Thyolo District: a clinic at the district hospita...

INTRODUCTION During 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the US Gulf Coast, displacing approximately two million people. With >250,000 evacuees in shelters, volunteers from the American Red Cross (ARC) and other nongovernmental and faith-based organizations provided services. The objective of this study was to evaluate the composition, pre-deployment training, and recognition of scenarios w...

PURPOSE This paper aims to discuss some of the obstacles to implementing policy and strategy related to health promoting prisons. It focuses on the role of prison officers and raises issues concerning their conditions of service, training and organisational culture in a situation where the prison system faces security issues, overcrowding and high levels of ill health among prisoners. DESIGN/...

T he move towards integration of family planning and genitourinary medicine (GUM) services (that is, the reorganisation of the two specialties, strategically and in terms of setting, in a more client centred approach) has recently been gathering momentum in the United Kingdom. Providers of family planning services are increasingly being urged to adopt a broader remit in respect of their clients...

Of 228 senior staff participating in schemes for their health supervision who were asked for their opinions on the examinations, 26% said they had derived a lot of benefit, 53% a little, 20% no benefit, and 1% were unable to express an opinion. The degree of benefit felt was influenced by the number of routine examinations; age was relatively unimportant. Detection of hidden illness was conside...

As self-medication is a worldwide problem of public health, this article had as objective to evaluate the behavior of the future health professionals with regard to the drug utilization, particularly, to the self-medication practice. 223 academic students from a public university in Recife City were interviewed, selected by proportional share in each course. A questionnaire on the drug utilizat...