Despite the fact that effective interventions for maternal and newborn health are widely recognized, the looming challenge remains to increase coverage and improve quality of maternal and newborn health (MNH) care provided by skilled birth attendant. According to recent estimates, approximately as low as 35% of childbirths in the least developed countries were delivered with skilled birth attendant (SBA) reflecting an emerging shortage and imbalanced distribution of such health professionals in developing countries. Although situations vary across countries, production of SBAs, upgrading of existing workforces, and in-service training are considered to be essential in increasing the coverage. Planning of human resource for MNH is a key element in filling the gap and identifies the bottle neck of the current policy.
WHO’s Human Resource Projection e-Tool for MNH is a graphical application tool developed for planning the need of human resource at national level in a country. The program takes into account various factors and simultaneously shows the 1) SBA coverage depending on the SBA production per year, and 2) number of skilled human resource depending on the goal set for the year 2015.
It is important to note that the projected number of human resource are not intended to be standards for countries but to help in further discussions and planning. The estimation of such numbers and coverage may serve as a guide for countries to base their plans and strategies in improving the situation of maternal and newborn health in order to achieve MDG5 addressing the important issue of skilled human resources.
WHO’s Department of Making Pregnancy Safer (MPS) has field tested these tools but would very much your feedback.
Projecting skilled birth attendant coverage based on the production of SBA per year
Projecting skilled birth attendant coverage based on the production of SBA per year
Click here for a tool that allows you to input different numbers of new nurses/midwives per year and simultaneously shows the resulting skilled-care coverage.
Projecting number of human resource needs based on the target SBA coverage in 2015
Click here for a tool that allows you to input different percentages of skilled-care coverage for 2015 and will project the human resources needed for reaching this goal. In addition, the tool allows you to calculate the annual amount of salary needed for the estimated number of human resources.