Achieving the health-related MDGs. It takes a workforce!

Dear colleagues,

With reference to the upcoming MDG Summit and the UN Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health, Dr Manuel Dayrit would like to share with you the above-mentioned page that was published today on the HRH website, which highlights the human resources for health situation in the 49 focus countries.

Achieving the health-related MDGs. It takes a workforce!
Link: http://www.who.int/hrh/workforce_mdgs/en/index.html

Density of doctors, nurses and midwives in the 49 priority countries
Link: http://www.who.int/hrh/density_chart.pdf

Please note that the link to the chart is:
http://www.who.int/hrh/fig_density.pdf

Kind regards,

Rebecca Bailey on behalf of Dr Manuel Dayrit
Rebecca J. Bailey, MSPH, CEd
Technical Officer
Health Workforce Education and Production
WHO/HSS/HRH

My source:
Ellen BONITO: bonitoe at wpro.who.int
GANM (Global Alliance for Nursing and Midwifery): GANM at ibp.wa-research.ch

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In Mevagissey, Cornwall last month browsing in Hurley Books, I came across a copy of Maps and Diagrams: Their Compilation and Construction by F.J. Monkhouse, et al. (1967). At three pounds - a historical bargain. Prompted by the charts above I will scan the cover and share some of the text/ideas here in the near future.

I was saddened to see that in Padstow The Strand Bookshop has closed - apparently in January 2009. As a listed building who knows perhaps it might smell of books once again!

Health, social care and personal map making

There have been two series running on BBC 4 in the UK over recent months and currently with a cartographic and historical focus:

see - The Beauty of Maps

This Vermeer - The Art of Painting - was featured in one programme and reveals the power and status of maps as Wikipedia also explains.

It is natural to see the health career model as a map, but this map is not just the preserve of the wealthy. Hodges' model can be used universally by all - a common framework.


Use of the term map and its synonyms is in turn common in medicine in many forms:

The map of medicine
Anatomical charts
WHO Global Health Atlas
The Malaria Atlas Project (MAP)
Globalis
HealthMap

The above sites reveal how maps, charts and atlases relate the individual, geography and health.

In addition to its geographic connotation projection also has a psychological meaning. Hodges' model provides a substrate* on which to project personalised, national and global health.

An individual; a people; a nation: for each a journey .... and for each a map ....

Image source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Painting_%28Vermeer%29

* You have to love that floor ;-)