In a major move to protect the health, safety and wellbeing of health workers in African countries, the World Health Organization has embarked in a collaboration with the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) and the International Labour Organization (ILO). The joint effort aims to strengthen the capacities of African countries to provide occupational health and safety measures for safeguarding their health workers. The announcement came during the 5th Global Forum on Human Resources for Health, held at WHO Headquarters, 3 to 5 April 2023.
Despite the health sector being responsible for restoring, protecting and promoting health, it is also hazardous to the health of its own workers. Health workers are exposed to a range of occupational risks associated with biological, chemical, physical, ergonomic and psychosocial hazards including violence, affecting the safety of both workers and patients.
Shockingly, about 54% of health workers in low- and middle-income countries have latent tuberculosis that is 25 times higher than the general population. During the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the risk of infection among health workers was 21 to 32 times higher than in the general adult population. In the WHO African Region alone, approximately 41% of health workers are exposed every year to at least one percutaneous injury with a sharp object contaminated with HBV, HCV and HIV, resulting in 12,000 cases of infection. However, only a quarter of health workers in the African continent are fully vaccinated against Hepatitis B virus.
In addition, between 44% and 83% of nurses in clinical settings in Africa have chronic low back pain compared to 18% among office workers.
Furthermore, health workers in Africa face high levels of workplace violence and harassment, including verbal, physical, sexual harassment and psychological violence ranging from 9% to 100%. The highest rates of violence were reported in South Africa (54%–100%) and Egypt (59.7%–86.1%).
Medical professions are also at higher risk of suicide worldwide. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 23% of front-line health-care workers worldwide suffered depression and anxiety and 39% suffered insomnia.
Tragically, more than 2 000 health workers in the WHO African region died from COVID-19 in the first 17 months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While occupational health and safety for health workers received significant attention during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, it was not included in the epidemic recovery plans. As a result, health workers in the three affected countries still lack social protection for occupational diseases and injuries and are not covered by the occupational safety and health regulations.
Currently, only eight out of the 55 countries in Africa have developed policy instruments for occupational health and safety of health workers. Countries which had pre-existing policy instruments and mechanisms in place for their implementation at national, sub-national and health facility levels were in better position to introduce measures for protection of health workers in the response to COVID-19, Ebola and Marburg outbreaks.
The joint AUDA-NEPAD/WHO/ILO project aims to address these problems by building political commitment and capacities to protect the health, safety and wellbeing of health workers in Africa.
The project will focus on placing safety at the centre of health care, promoting the rights of health workers to healthy and safe environments, and building capacities for improving working conditions in in the health sector.
The project will include policy roundtables and awareness raising for key stakeholders, training workshops on the development of occupational health and safety programmes at the national, subnational and health facility levels as well as exchange of experience and good practices among countries.
