To Ban or Not to Ban? Regulating Dual Practice in Palestine.

Abstract-Dual practice, health professionals working simultaneously in the public and private sectors, is perceived to negatively impact quality of health care. Though a range of policy options exists to regulate dual practice, little is known about the impact of different options on quality of care. Successful policy is dependent on a country's health care system, health labor market, monitoring of private sector activity, and enforceability of regulations. This article provides evidence on the potential impact of banning dual practice in Palestine. We apply theoretical evidence and international experience, together with context-specific primary and secondary data, to assess the policy's enforceability, implications, and sustainability in the Palestinian context. In this setting, though the risk of losing health workers to the private sector is low, banning dual practice will most likely lead to the "brain drain" of rare specialists from the public sector. Moreover, though there is some evidence that dual practice is negatively impacting quality of care, poor quality in public facilities associated with shortages in supplies and equipment, poor organizational and management practices, low motivation, and absence of monitoring and accountability systems are unlikely to change by banning dual practice. Finally, the ban, as conceptualized, is fiscally unsustainable in a strained health budget and may be challenging to enforce due to a weak monitoring system. Overall, it was found that an outright ban on dual practice would not reduce the financial burden on patients and enhance their access to quality services in the public sector.

Understanding Health Workers' Job Preferences to Improve Rural Retention in Timor-Leste: Findings from a Discrete Choice Experiment.

BACKGROUND: Timor-Leste built its health workforce up from extremely low levels after its war of independence, with the assistance of Cuban training, but faces challenges as the first cohorts of doctors will shortly be freed from their contracts with government. Retaining doctors, nurses and midwives in remote areas requires a good understanding of health worker preferences. METHODS: The article reports on a discrete choice experiment (DCE) carried out amongst 441 health workers, including 173 doctors, 150 nurses and 118 midwives. Qualitative methods were conducted during the design phase. The attributes which emerged were wages, skills upgrading/specialisation, location, working conditions, transportation and housing. FINDINGS: One of the main findings of the study is the relative lack of importance of wages for doctors, which could be linked to high intrinsic motivation, perceptions of having an already highly paid job (relative to local conditions), and/or being in a relatively early stage of their career for most respondents. Professional development provides the highest satisfaction with jobs, followed by the working conditions. Doctors with less experience, males and the unmarried are more flexible about location. For nurses and midwives, skill upgrading emerged as the most cost effective method. CONCLUSIONS: The study is the first of its kind conducted in Timor-Leste. It provides policy-relevant information to balance financial and non-financial incentives for different cadres and profiles of staff. It also augments a thin literature on the preferences of working doctors (as opposed to medical students) in low and middle income countries and provides insights into the ability to instil motivation to work in rural areas, which may be influenced by rural recruitment and Cuban-style training, with its emphasis on community service.

What do health workers in Timor-Leste want, know and do? Findings from a national health labour market survey.

BACKGROUND: The objectives of this study were to understand the labour market dynamics among health workers, including their preferences and concerns, and to assess the skills, competence and performance (i.e. the 'know-do gap') of doctors working in Timor-Leste. METHODS: This cross-sectional survey was implemented in all 13 districts of Timor-Leste in 2014. We surveyed 443 health workers, including 175 doctors, 150 nurses and 118 midwives (about 20% of the health workers in the country). We also observed 632 clinical consultations with doctors, including 442 direct clinical observations, and tested 190 vignettes. RESULTS: The study highlights some positive findings, including the gender balance of health workers overall, the concentration of doctors in rural areas, the high overall reported satisfaction of staff with their work and high motivation, the positive intention to stay in the public sector, the feeling of being well prepared by training for work, the relatively frequent and satisfactory supervisions, and the good attitudes towards patients as identified in observations and vignettes. However, some areas require more investigations and investments. The overall clinical performance of the doctors was very good in terms of attitude and moderate in regard to history taking, health education and treatment. However, the average physical examination performance score was low. Doctors performed better with simulated cases than the real cases in general, which means they have better knowledge and skills than they actually demonstrated. The factors that were significantly associated with the clinical performance of doctors were location of the health facility (urban doctors were better) and consultation time (cases with more consultation time were better). Regression analysis suggests that lack of knowledge was significantly associated with lack of performance, while lack of motivation and equipment were not significant. CONCLUSIONS: The survey provides essential information for workforce planning and for developing training policies and terms and conditions that will attract and retain health workers in rural service. Improving the work environment and performance of doctors working in rural health facilities and ensuring compliance with clinical protocols are two priority areas needed to improve the performance of doctors in Timor-Leste.

Why do health labour market forces matter?

Human resources for health have been recognized as essential to the development of responsive and effective health systems. Low- and middle-income countries seeking to achieve universal health coverage face human resource constraints - whether in the form of health worker shortages, maldistribution of workers or poor worker performance - that seriously undermine their ability to achieve well-functioning health systems. Although much has been written about the human resource crisis in the health sector, labour economic frameworks have seldom been applied to analyse the situation and little is known or understood about the operation of labour markets in low- and middle-income countries. Traditional approaches to addressing human resource constraints have focused on workforce planning: estimating health workforce requirements based on a country's epidemiological and demographic profile and scaling up education and training capacities to narrow the gap between the "needed" number of health workers and the existing number. However, this approach neglects other important factors that influence human resource capacity, including labour market dynamics and the behavioural responses and preferences of the health workers themselves. This paper describes how labour market analysis can contribute to a better understanding of the factors behind human resource constraints in the health sector and to a more effective design of policies and interventions to address them. The premise is that a better understanding of the impact of health policies on health labour markets, and subsequently on the employment conditions of health workers, would be helpful in identifying an effective strategy towards the progressive attainment of universal health coverage.

Les ressources humaines du secteur de la santé sont essentielles au développement de systèmes médicaux efficaces et réactifs. Les pays à revenu faible et moyen qui cherchent à obtenir une couverture maladie universelle souffrent de restrictions en matière de ressources humaines - que ce soit sous forme de pénurie d'agents de santé, de mauvaise répartition ou de faibles performances des travailleurs - qui compromettent sérieusement leur capacité à créer un système de santé optimal. Même si on a beaucoup écrit au sujet de la crise des ressources humaines dans le secteur de la santé, des cadres économiques de travail ont rarement été appliqués pour analyser la situation, et on connaît ou on comprend peu de choses sur le fonctionnement des marchés du travail dans les pays à revenu faible et moyen. Les approches traditionnelles dans le but de répondre aux restrictions en matière de ressources humaines accordent de l'importance à la planification des effectifs : estimer les besoins en matière de travailleurs de la santé par rapport au profil démographique et épidémiologique d'un pays, et intensifier les capacités de formation et d'enseignement pour réduire l'écart entre le nombre de travailleurs "nécessaire" et le nombre réel. Toutefois, cette approche néglige d'autres facteurs importants qui influent sur la capacité des ressources humaines, notamment les dynamiques du marché du travail et les réponses et préférences comportementales des travailleurs de la santé. Ce document explique comment l'analyse du marché du travail peut aider à mieux comprendre les facteurs qui sont à l'origine des restrictions en matière de ressources humaines dans le secteur de la santé, mais aussi à mettre en oeuvre des politiques et des interventions plus efficaces pour y remédier. L'hypothèse initiale est qu'une meilleure compréhension de l'impact des politiques de santé sur les marchés du travail de la santé et, par ailleurs, sur les conditions d'emploi des travailleurs de la santé, serait utile pour pouvoir identifier une stratégie efficace et progressivement mettre en place une couverture maladie universelle.

El papel de los recursos humanos en el sector sanitario se considera esencial para el desarrollo de sistemas sanitarios eficaces y con capacidad de respuesta. Los países de ingresos bajos y medianos que aspiran a alcanzar la cobertura sanitaria universal se enfrentan a las limitaciones en materia de recursos humanos, sea por escasez de personal sanitario, la distribución ineficaz del personal o el desempeño ineficiente del mismo, factores que socavan gravemente la capacidad para lograr sistemas sanitarios con un funcionamiento adecuado. Aunque se ha vertido mucha tinta acerca de la crisis de recursos humanos en el sector sanitario, rara vez se han aplicado los marcos económicos laborales para analizar la situación y poco se sabe o entiende sobre el funcionamiento de los mercados laborales en los países de ingresos bajos y medianos. Los enfoques tradicionales para hacer frente a las limitaciones en materia de recursos humanos se han centrado en la planificación del personal, mediante el cálculo de las necesidades de personal sanitario basada en el perfil epidemiológico y demográfico del país y la ampliación de los recursos educativos y formativos para reducir la brecha entre el número «necesario¼ de personal sanitario y el número real. Sin embargo, este enfoque deja de lado otros factores importantes que influyen en la capacidad de los recursos humanos, como la dinámica del mercado de trabajo, las respuestas de comportamiento y las preferencias del personal sanitario. Este informe describe cómo el análisis del mercado laboral pretende mejorar la comprensión de los factores que explican la escasez en materia de recursos humanos en el sector sanitario y ofrecer un diseño más eficaz de las políticas e intervenciones para abordarlos. La premisa para ello es que una mejor comprensión del impacto de las políticas sanitarias en el mercado laboral sanitario, y por consiguiente, en las condiciones laborales del personal sanitario, sería de gran ayuda en la identificación de una estrategia eficaz para alcanzar la cobertura sanitaria universal de forma progresiva.

Assessing health workers' revenues and coping strategies in Nigeria--a mixed-methods study.

BACKGROUND: The setting of realistic performance-based financing rewards necessitates not just knowledge of health workers' salaries, but of the revenue that accrues from their additional income-generating activities. This study examined the coping mechanisms of health workers in the public health sector of Nasarawa and Ondo states in Nigeria to supplement their salaries and benefits; it also estimated the proportionate value of the revenues from those coping mechanisms in relation to the health workers' official incomes. METHODS: This study adopted a mixed-methods approach, consisting of semi-structured interviews, a review of policy documents, a survey using self-administered questionnaires, and the randomized response technique (RRT). In all, 170 health workers (86 in Ondo, 84 in Nasarawa) participated in the survey. In-depth interviews were conducted with 24 health workers (12 per state) and nine policy makers from both states. RESULTS: The health workers perceived their salaries as inadequate, though most policy makers differed in this assessment. There appeared to be a considerable expenditure-income disparity among the respondents. Approximately 56% (n = 93) of the study population reported having additional earning arrangements: most reported non-medical activities such as farming and trading, but private practice was also frequently reported.Half of the respondents with additional earning arrangements stated that their income from those activities was the equivalent of half or more of their monthly salaries. Specifically, 35% (n = 32) said that they earned about half of their official monthly salaries and 15% (n = 14) reported earning the same or more than their monthly salaries from these activities. Other coping mechanisms used by the health workers included prioritizing activities that enabled the earning of per diems, collecting informal payments and gifts from patients, and pilfering drugs from facilities. CONCLUSIONS: Predatory and non-predatory mechanisms accounted for the health workers' additional income. It may be difficult for the health workers to meet their expenses with their salaries and financial incentives; this highlights the need for the regulation of additional earnings and to implement targeted accountability mechanisms. This study indicates the value of using mixed methods when investigating sensitive issues. Future studies of this type should employ mixed methods for triangulation purposes to provide better insight into health workers' responses.

A technical framework for costing health workforce retention schemes in remote and rural areas.

BACKGROUND: Increasing the availability of health workers in remote and rural areas through improved health workforce recruitment and retention is crucial to population health. However, information about the costs of such policy interventions often appears incomplete, fragmented or missing, despite its importance for the sound selection, planning, implementation and evaluation of these policies. This lack of a systematic approach to costing poses a serious challenge for strong health policy decisions. METHODS: This paper proposes a framework for carrying out a costing analysis of interventions to increase the availability of health workers in rural and remote areas with the aim to help policy decision makers. It also underlines the importance of identifying key sources of financing and of assessing financial sustainability.The paper reviews the evidence on costing interventions to improve health workforce recruitment and retention in remote and rural areas, provides guidance to undertake a costing evaluation of such interventions and investigates the role and importance of costing to inform the broader assessment of how to improve health workforce planning and management. RESULTS: We show that while the debate on the effectiveness of policies and strategies to improve health workforce retention is gaining impetus and attention, there is still a significant lack of knowledge and evidence about the associated costs. To address the concerns stemming from this situation, key elements of a framework to undertake a cost analysis are proposed and discussed. CONCLUSIONS: These key elements should help policy makers gain insight into the costs of policy interventions, to clearly identify and understand their financing sources and mechanisms, and to ensure their sustainability.