By Pius Sawa in Geneva.
26th May 2008

with hardly seven years to the deadline of achieving the millenium Development Goals, access to health is still the biggest task.

Goal numbers four, five and six speak about child health, martenal health and the so called disease of the poor which include AIDS, TB and Malaria.

"A sheer understanding of the key forces driving public health approach is what the world needs to address in the struggle to achieving the Millinium development goal."said Mirta Roses Periago,the Director of Pan-American Health organisation during the opening of the Geneva Health Forum 2008 taking place in Geneva Switzerland under the theme,Strengthening health systems and the Global Health Workforce.
The Forum runs from May 25-28th.

Migration of health workers is one of the biggest challenges contributing to the poor perfomance of the health sector mostly in the developing countries. The executive director of the Global Health Workforce, Mubadhar Sheikh refers to migration of health workers as rural to urban, public to private, total change of profession and the most common greener pasture search in Western countries by medical doctors from developing countries.

Among the solutions being suggested is the addressing of both internal and external factors needed to retain and train enough medical workers. for example the security of female medical workers should be ensured.

Change of tasks by training and allowing community health workers will cut the cost and improve on the health systems in developing countries.

But the director department of health systems financing at the WHO in Switzerland David Evans looks at the need to cut the out of pocket spending by poor people from 70% to less than 30%.

"One hundred million people are being pushed under the poverty line each year because they have to pay for the health services." says David.

He says most people spend out of their own pockets to pay for treatment while most governments are not increasing their annual budget on health. He goes on to say;

"seventy percent user fee on health services is too high and we are saying if this can go down to 20 percent, many people will start affording good health services."
Giving a key note address, the Vice president of Uganda, Professor Gilbert Bukenya, said the African health system has failed to go down to the communities. In a continent where mulnutrition contributes to 40% of stunted children, food availability will save the situation.

" Clean water will reduce water borne diseases by 70%, while clean latrines will reduce related diseases by 50% and good housing will contribute to 30% of disease burden reduction." He says.