Human resources for health
Also called: HRH · Topic: Human Capital: Education, Health and Demographic Dividend · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Human resources for health (HRH) means the people who run a health system: doctors, nurses, midwives, technicians, pharmacists, community health workers and support staff. A hospital building or a machine cannot treat anyone by itself. Trained people have to work there. If staff are short, new hospitals stay partly unused, departments cannot open and patients wait longer. So HRH depends on two things: training enough health workers, and getting them to work where they are needed.
Example
Under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY), new AIIMS were built in places such as Bhopal, Patna and Rishikesh. The buildings were ready earlier than the staff. Some departments could not run because faculty and nursing posts stayed empty. These AIIMS also train undergraduates, postgraduates and nurses, so over time they add to India's health workforce.
Don't confuse with
- Health infrastructure: this is the physical side, meaning buildings, beds and equipment. HRH is the people who use that infrastructure to give care. You can have one without the other.
- Human capital: this is the skills, knowledge and health of a country's whole population, and it raises productivity in every sector. HRH is only the health workforce. Health workers do help build human capital, because they keep the rest of the workforce healthy.