Conclusion
Even in a middle-income country such as South Africa, the health system is struggling to retain sufficient numbers of skilled health workers in the public sector. Poor monitoring and management of skill combinations exacerbate this problem. As such the use of a tool like WISN, when adapted to the local situation, can not only help to better deploy staff between facilities, a kind of optimum management of scarcity, but can also help quantify the gaps to inform planning, training and allocation decisions at local, provincial and national levels.
Competing interests: None declared.