Capacity building initiatives for health workforce development in Gujarat, India

Abstract

Human resources are critical component of an efficient and effective health care system. In many developing countries including India, there has been a long-term neglect in the planning and implementation of capacity building efforts for the public health workforce. Recently several states in India have launched variety of initiatives to address this challenge. Efforts for manpower development in Gujarat were initiated in 2000. Present manuscript attempts to document the initiatives taken up by the state government for health workforce development and understand its impact on public health indicators. The information regarding the state health indicators in the last decade and capacity building initiatives for health workforce development undertaken by the state government was collected from the official sources (Websites, Government documents), consultation with key stakeholders and literature. The state has witnessed improvement in key health and demographic indicators in the last decade. The state has scaled up its training facilities to produce adroit workforce in different cadres. However, critical shortage of manpower is evident in some of the cadres which need corrective measures. The state has also undertaken several innovative programs (state sponsored trainings for capacity building, financial incentives for medical officers, training of MBBS doctors in emergency obstetric care, anesthesia and essential newborn care, training of skilled birth attendants for normal deliveries, IMNCI trainings, formation of Gujarat Medical Education and Research Society and several other capacity building initiatives as a part of NRHM) to build the capacity of existing workforce in the system.