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Filling the Gaps in the Pharmacy Workforce in Post-Conflict Areas: Experience from Four Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa
Background: While the pharmacy workforce is the third largest professional healthcare group worldwide, the pharmacy workforce landscape remains unclear in post-conflict areas in sub-Saharan Africa. Method: Key informants were selected for semi-structured interviews due to their role in providing pha...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8346012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34360423 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18158132 |
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author | Wong, Anabelle Hung, Kevin K. C. Mabhala, Mzwandile Tenney, Justin W. Graham, Colin A. |
author_facet | Wong, Anabelle Hung, Kevin K. C. Mabhala, Mzwandile Tenney, Justin W. Graham, Colin A. |
author_sort | Wong, Anabelle |
collection | PubMed |
description | Background: While the pharmacy workforce is the third largest professional healthcare group worldwide, the pharmacy workforce landscape remains unclear in post-conflict areas in sub-Saharan Africa. Method: Key informants were selected for semi-structured interviews due to their role in providing pharmacy services in the selected country: the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, and South Sudan. Transcripts from the interviews were anonymized, coded, and analyzed. Results: Nine participants were recruited (CAR: 2; DRC: 2; Ethiopia: 2; South Sudan: 3), and all except two were pharmacists. Conflict-specific challenges in pharmacy service delivery were identified as the following: unpredictable health needs and/or mismatched pharmaceutical supply, transport difficulties due to insecure roads, and shortage of pharmacy workforce due to brain drain or interrupted schooling. Barriers to health workforce retention and growth were identified to be brain drain as a result of suboptimal living and working conditions or remuneration, the perception of an unsafe work environment, and a career pathway or commitment duration that does not fit the diaspora or expatriate staff. Conclusion: To tackle the barriers of pharmacy health workforce retention and growth, policy solutions will be required and efforts that can bring about long-term improvement should be prioritized. This is essential to achieve universal health coverage and the targets of the sustainable development goals for conflict affected areas, as well as to “leave no one behind”. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8346012 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-83460122021-08-07 Filling the Gaps in the Pharmacy Workforce in Post-Conflict Areas: Experience from Four Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa Wong, Anabelle Hung, Kevin K. C. Mabhala, Mzwandile Tenney, Justin W. Graham, Colin A. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Background: While the pharmacy workforce is the third largest professional healthcare group worldwide, the pharmacy workforce landscape remains unclear in post-conflict areas in sub-Saharan Africa. Method: Key informants were selected for semi-structured interviews due to their role in providing pharmacy services in the selected country: the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, and South Sudan. Transcripts from the interviews were anonymized, coded, and analyzed. Results: Nine participants were recruited (CAR: 2; DRC: 2; Ethiopia: 2; South Sudan: 3), and all except two were pharmacists. Conflict-specific challenges in pharmacy service delivery were identified as the following: unpredictable health needs and/or mismatched pharmaceutical supply, transport difficulties due to insecure roads, and shortage of pharmacy workforce due to brain drain or interrupted schooling. Barriers to health workforce retention and growth were identified to be brain drain as a result of suboptimal living and working conditions or remuneration, the perception of an unsafe work environment, and a career pathway or commitment duration that does not fit the diaspora or expatriate staff. Conclusion: To tackle the barriers of pharmacy health workforce retention and growth, policy solutions will be required and efforts that can bring about long-term improvement should be prioritized. This is essential to achieve universal health coverage and the targets of the sustainable development goals for conflict affected areas, as well as to “leave no one behind”. MDPI 2021-07-31 /pmc/articles/PMC8346012/ /pubmed/34360423 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18158132 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Wong, Anabelle Hung, Kevin K. C. Mabhala, Mzwandile Tenney, Justin W. Graham, Colin A. Filling the Gaps in the Pharmacy Workforce in Post-Conflict Areas: Experience from Four Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa |
title | Filling the Gaps in the Pharmacy Workforce in Post-Conflict Areas: Experience from Four Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa |
title_full | Filling the Gaps in the Pharmacy Workforce in Post-Conflict Areas: Experience from Four Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa |
title_fullStr | Filling the Gaps in the Pharmacy Workforce in Post-Conflict Areas: Experience from Four Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa |
title_full_unstemmed | Filling the Gaps in the Pharmacy Workforce in Post-Conflict Areas: Experience from Four Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa |
title_short | Filling the Gaps in the Pharmacy Workforce in Post-Conflict Areas: Experience from Four Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa |
title_sort | filling the gaps in the pharmacy workforce in post-conflict areas: experience from four countries in sub-saharan africa |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8346012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34360423 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18158132 |
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