Brief Description

A joint programme approach was chosen to harness the unique skills and expertise of partnering UN agencies and bring them to bear in a joint effort to address the human resource crisis in the health sector in Lesotho. This strategy is aligned to the overall objectives of the UN system in Lesotho to Deliver as One. It will be complementary to the comprehensive training programme for medical staff which WHO Lesotho is supporting and will leverage the unique strength of UNV to deploy qualified medical staff under the volunteer modality.

The deployment of UNV medical staff will serve two main objectives 1) immediate: contribute as a stop-gap measure to resolving the human resource crisis in the health sector and 2) long term: capacity development through quality supervision, peer- and on-the-job learning of medical staff in situ. Recruited doctors will be deployed to the areas of need as identified by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare through the office of the Director General of Health Services. In order to maximize the outreach and capacity development potential of the limited number of UNV medical doctors to be deployed under this programme, it is suggested to place them at the district level as their home base. From this home base they are expected to provide roving services to the community level health facilities in their districts. An initial estimate would be that UNV Medical doctors will spend between 40 and 50% of their time roving the health facilities at the community level. Through this roving arrangement, it is expected that the services of the UNV Medical doctors can be extended to a large number of the facilities that will be renovated and rehabilitated under the MCC thereby enhancing the potential of these efforts in improving health services in Lesotho.

 

Contact:

Ms. Orfhlaith Ramsey
orfhlaith.ramsey@undp.org