The World Health Professions Alliance speaks for more than 41 million health professionals worldwide, assembling essential knowledge and experience from the key health professions in more than 130 countries.
6 December 2022—The WHPA represented the interests of health professionals in a statement made at the third meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) to develop a WHO instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.
8 November 2022—To mark the signing of an historic Memorandum of Understanding between the 5 members of the WHPA and the World Health Organization (WHO), the partners have issued a joint press release outlining the need for a collaborative approach to investing in the health workforce and emphasizing the shared goals of the partner organizations.
25 March 2021
The WHPA supports the WHO’s Vaccine Equity Declaration, which encourages countries to ensure that access to immunisation is determined by need, rather than wealth or geographic location.
Geneva, Switzerland, 1 October 2020 – The World Health Professions Alliance (WHPA) is launching a campaign to improve work environments for health professionals around the world.
To progress on UHC, there must be adequate and sustainably financed health workforce development, with a focus on integrated service delivery for primary health care. Governments and employers must provide this workforce with positive practice environments, especially during emergencies. We also welcome the call for national health systems to be inclusive of civil society.
The WHPA appreciates the proposal to establish a Global Health Emergency Council and underlines that civil society organizations must be involved in its work. We strongly support the development of a cohesive multidisciplinary and professionalized health emergency workforce. We emphasize the need for decent, safe, and responsive working conditions for the health workforce to deliver better health outcomes.
We are concerned by the inadequate access to quality NCD care and its insufficient inclusion in essential health benefit packages. 122 countries reported a disruption of NCD care due to the COVID-19 pandemic in a survey to WHO. If the burden of NCDs is to be effectively addressed, it is imperative to adopt a collaborative, interprofessional, community-based and person-centred approach.
The delivery of high-quality health services depends on environments that support decent work conditions. Throughout the pandemic, healthcare personnel have worked long hours, faced unwarrantable violence and worsened mental health in high-pressure environments. Under-investment has resulted in the deterioration of working conditions. The “protection and performance” of the HWF requires legally binding strategies to guarantee the safety of health personnel especially in high-risk settings, including rural areas.