Editor’s observe: Amanda McClelland, a registered nurse, is the senior vice chairman of Prevent Epidemics at Resolve to Save Lives, the place she leads a world group working to speed up progress to make the world safer from the following epidemic. Follow her on X: @AmandaMcClella2.

CNN
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Though it doesn’t get a lot press, there’s a looming disaster: The world doesn’t have sufficient well being care employees, and demand for them is rising sooner than provide. The World Health Organization (WHO) projects a gap of 10 million well being employees by 2030.

Although no nation is exempt from this rising drawback, 89% of the scarcity is concentrated in low- and middle-income international locations. Many international locations nonetheless battle to fulfill the international minimum target set by WHO of 44.5 well being employees for each 10,000 individuals.

This drawback is compounded by well being employees leaving their dwelling international locations to pursue alternatives elsewhere. An estimated 75,000 nurses have left Nigeria since 2017. More than 4,000 well being employees left Zimbabwe between 2021 and 2022, and almost the identical variety of nurses left Ghana in 2022 alone.

High-income “destination” international locations – such because the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia – are additionally answerable for recruiting well being care employees to deal with their very own shortages, thereby shrinking the workforce in a number of the world’s most susceptible international locations.

WHO developed a “red list” in 2020 to spotlight international locations with extreme shortages and discourage high-income international locations from recruiting well being care employees from these locations. The checklist contains 55 international locations, with eight additions in simply the previous 12 months. My group, Resolve to Save Lives, works with a number of international locations on the checklist – together with Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia – by offering funding, further employees, sources and technical collaboration.

The crimson checklist is a crucial step in attracting consideration to the issue, however it’s not an answer.

A protracted-term answer should tackle the important thing elements pulling well being care employees away from their dwelling international locations within the first place, together with low salaries, unsafe working situations and an absence of an sufficient social security internet.

Take the instance of neighborhood well being employees, a significant and increasingly important part of the global health care workforce. About 86% of them are not paid or are underpaid. Many well being care employees lack enough private protecting gear, and WHO estimates that as many as 180,000 well being care employees died throughout the first 12 months of the Covid-19 pandemic alone. In some international locations, well being care employees have confronted stigmatization, harassment and violence, resulting in mental health issues and even demise by suicide.

Beyond our moral obligations to well being care employees, failing to offer them with sufficient help and protections additionally generates huge financial prices. Our latest research with the World Bank calculated the financial burden of well being care employee Covid-19 infections: The value of a single an infection ranged from $10,105 in Colombia to greater than $34,000 in South Africa. But a new report by the Frontline Health Workers Coalition affords hope for the uphill battle that lies forward. For each greenback spent on supporting these employees, as a lot as $10 could be saved.

Every nation should do extra to guard those that work to guard us. This requires a holistic method: setting insurance policies to construct and keep a wholesome workforce, correctly allocating sources to guard it, and being accountable for the outcomes.

Three instant actions international locations can take to strengthen their well being care workforce:

To make the world safer and to deal with the more and more dire hole in well being care employees, we should take higher care of those we’ve got. At the seventy fifth World Health Assembly in 2022, countries committed to supporting well being care employees. Commitments are essential, however now it’s time to behave. To make the world safer and to deal with the more and more dire hole in well being care employees, we’ve got to take higher care of those we’ve got.