Medical Education and its Relation to Health Development
Dr. Jamila Ya’coob
Medical educational institutions in Yemen face many shortcomings that create challenges in the provision of health services, where medical education is limited to some cities and absent from most rural areas, which made the citizens suffer from the deterioration and lack of services in most areas of the Republic of Yemen.
In order to improve and enhance the capacities, human resource planning for health systems should be better linked to technical, vocational and university medical education institutions in order to facilitate the transition to work in health institutions and provide continuing medical training for health personnel.
In fact, the quality education is the basis of health and well-being in the societies in order for its members to live healthy and productive lives. And for children and young people to learn, they must be healthy, as it is linked to education becauseit is the catalyst for development and health. And through it, the skills, values and positions enable the community members to enjoy healthy and safe live.
Statistics from the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report show that higher levels of education among mothers improve children's health rates and reduce mortality.
Orientation to the medical education is an essential pillar of the sustainable development by strengthening and developing medical and administrative services in line with the needs of the present time.
Several factors are behind the low services of specialized medical education, including the lack of funding, the lack of skilled graduates, and the lack of willingness of the health workers to operate in the rural areas; as education and capacity building are key factors to achieving the sustainable development goals for any country. In fact, an educated individual is more productive than the uneducated.
The health sectors in Yemen should stress on the provision of the medical educational institutions at the level of all governorates and districts so that the service covers all the rural areas, and also emphasize on facilitating the process of completing education in the specialized medical field as it is a basic strategy to achieving its goals.
The chronic and severe shortage of the professionals and competencies of health workers represents a critical challenge in achieving universal health coverage; without a competent and accessible health workforce, millions of citizens in the Republic of Yemen will not be able to receive services that are appropriate to their health needs.
Increasing population growth, demographic and epidemiological shifts, and economic growth are creating a growing demand for health care; this in turn increases the pressure on the health workforce, especially in Yemen's current circumstances and in light of the global commitment of the Sustainable Development Goals to achieve universal health coverage by 2030, which means that all people and communities, everywhere in the world, must receive the quality they need, whether reinforcing, preventive, curative, rehabilitative or pain-relieving, without facing any financial distress or any other circumstances that could hinder it. Also, the way we measure progress in universal health coverage is through effective coverage of basic health and financial services, and ensuring that no one is exposed to poverty because of ill health.
Health outcomes will remain poor if the services are low-quality and unsafe, and therefore the provision of high-quality health services is essential, and achieving the goals of the Sustainable Development Goals for improving health requires the availability of a sufficient number of professionals working in the health sector with experience and according to the indicators of the World Health Organization in 2013 AD, which indicates that the shortage in the number of health care workers at the global level is 17.4 million people, knowing that the worst repercussions will fall on the poorest countries; the high mobility of male and female doctors and nurses means that low-income countries are losing their stock of professionals and facing a huge financial burden due to the low number of health workers.
Health is a top priority in any society, and the state should devote its great efforts to promoting it by paying attention to human resources and developing their scientific and practical capabilities in order to achieve the goal of living in a healthy, vibrant and safe society.
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