Health care workers (HCWs) are a prerequisite for strengthening health systems and health care delivery. They are integral to preventing disease, healing and caring for people, and easing pain and suffering. HCWs provide childhood immunizations, administer anti-retroviral drugs to AIDS patients and directly observed therapy for tuberculosis (TB) patients, promote safe childbirth, and provide a host of other services. In many countries, particularly in the global South, health workers are in short supply.
