Human Resources for Health in Maternal, Neonatal and - HRH ...

informal, mutual-help action groups for professional support and health advocacy (Laperriere
2007).
A number of tools or instruments have been developed to assess teamwork performance with
15 being designated as ―best measures‖ by Heinemann and Zeiss (2002). However none of
these tools has been developed for use in LMIC at community level in MNRH or trialled in
this context.
Health worker partnerships across sectors
While existing government community based health workers (CHW) will have a role in the
community-based efforts, they are unlikely to be adequate. A well designed program also
needs to involve the targeted use of CHWs recruited by NGOs, and informal private sector
providers.(NIPORT/ Mitra and Associates/Macro International 2009). Intersectorial
collaboration is therefore necessary to quality care and performance (WHO 1989).
Intersectorial collaboration requires health personnel from multiple organisations to work
together. Gordon et al reports on some lessons learned from experience in this area which
may have some applicability for HRH in MNRH at community level (Gordon, Kavanagh et
al. 1998). These lessons include the consideration of the need to
effectively integrate multi-organizational perspectives and resources;
communicate effectively to a range of audiences;
work with different styles of leadership and approaches to problem solving, and
decision making
align the missions of various partners to deliver a more appropriate mix of
resources to communities
These challenges are no where better illustrated in the context of bilateral donor programmes
such as the provision of Cuban health workers to countries such as Timor Leste (Anderson
2008).
Partnerships with professionals outside the traditional health sector such as in education are
important in order to provide access to accurate information on health and linkages for
referral. Teachers are key to providing reproductive health education in primary and
secondary schools. However little is known about how teachers and health workers actually
work together to support the delivery of sex education in schools. Some insight is provided
from a study of teacher and health workers perceptions of a large scale programme in Egypt
(Arab Int. Centre for fighting against AIDS 2002) which found that this approach to health
education is acceptable to both professionals. Training for school teachers in HIV/AIDS life
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