Although the poorest countries are the most affected
by the scarcity of health workers, most of the countries
in the world are affected by problems related to their
health workforce. The availability of an appropriate
number of health workers is an important (if not the
most important) issue to solve, but not the only one.
The productivity of the existent resources, the appropri-
ate skill mix (i.e. allocation throughout different occupa-
tions), the geographical distribution of the health
workers according to the population needs, and the
quality of the services delivered by them are just a few
examples of other issues to consider, generally neglected
by the decision makers. As Dussault and Dubois stated
[[7], p.14], ‘ [t]he lack of explicit policies for HRH devel-
opment has produced, in most countries, imbalances
that threaten the capacity of health care systems to
attain their objectives ’ .