Overview
The health workforce is composed of a wide range of health professionals, including medical doctors, nurses, midwives, clinical officers or physician assistants, laboratory technicians, pharmacists, community health workers (CHWs), etc., plus management and support staff.
Though the optimal number of different types of health workers varies from context to context, there is nevertheless a correlation between the availability of health workers and provision of health services. For essential primary health care services, the staffing levels below have been defined as the minimum required to attain and maintain primary health care services of acceptable quality.
Gender and diversity need to be considered. Imbalances in staffing should be addressed by redeploying health workers to areas that experience critical gaps in relation to health needs, or by recruiting new staff.
Main guidance
Emergency standard
| Health Centres | |||
| Medical Doctor | 1 : <50,000 | Clinical Officer (in-patient care) | 3 per facility of 50 beds |
| Clinical officer(out-patient services) | 1 : <10,000 | Nurses (in-patient care) | 4 per ward for rotation |
| Nurses (out-patient services) | 1 : <10,000 | Nurse/Midwives | 5 for each Mother and Child Health clinic with maternity wards |
| Nutrition Supervisor | 1 : < 10,000 | Nutrition Auxiliary Workers | 4 per stabilization centre for population < 10,000 |
| Psychiatric Nurse/Clinical Officer trained in Mental Health | 1 : < 50,000 | Qualified Laboratory Technician (diploma) | 1 : <15,000 where there are full laboratory services |
| Qualified Pharmacist(diploma) | 1 : > 50,000 –100,000 or for a cluster of smaller camps | Laboratory Assistant(certificate) | 1 – 2 : <15,000 |
| Community Health Care | |||
| Community Health Workers | 1 : 1,000 | Nutrition Outreach Workers | 1 : 750 in refugee camps where GAM is above 10% |
Longer-term standard
The above standards apply to both emergencies and long-term situations except that the long term standard for community health workers is:
- At least one 1 CHW should be available for every 1,000 people.
Links
Main contacts
UNHCR DPSM/PHS. At: [email protected].