Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Challenge: Inspiring Health Care workers to go to remote locations

I came across a conversation in a Nepali forum where well-wishers of Nepal's healthcare system were having a conversation:


Many different ideas were discussed. One was an acknowledgement that doctors don't want to go to remote locations.


Forum user "Janatarei" expressed:
"First thing, doctors (not all but many) back home are using their occupation as means of earning money rather than serving people. There are doctors in well facilitated areas but if you go to villages it's hard to find one. It's not just the case of very remote districts, but even in districts close to Kathmandu and other major cities. Health posts don't even have a person trained to administer vaccines, let alone docs. People who take care of health posts (sweepers, peons) are giving vaccines. It's a mess."
http://sajha.com/sajha/html/index.cfm?threadid=94892

Suggestions were made on how to inspire doctors to go to remote locations:

Forum user "Budmash" expressed:
"We have different options to inspire doctors to go to rural areas:
1) Praise them
2) Pay them
3) Shame them
4) Respect them
5) Appeal to their sense of humanity
6) Appeal to their conscience

Which of the above options or combinations of options do you feel we could use? How could we do all the above? What are the methods we could use?

Maybe we should study case studies of the doctors who have gone to rural areas and interview them and see what it is that inspired them to go to these areas?

I agree with both of you that we need to provide enough incentive to these doctors so that they feel inspired to go to these places.

Any suggestions of all the different ways we could inspire the next generation of doctors, health specialists, nurses, etc to go to rural areas?
"


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