Health worker campaigns briefing

The global shortage of 3.5 million health workers hits children the hardest. Health workers save children’s lives. Without them, no vaccine can be administered, no life-saving drugs prescribed and no woman can be given expert care during childbirth. No child should die because they are unable to get help from a health worker, but because of a global shortage of 3.5 million doctors, nurses, midwives and community health workers, every year millions do. Overcoming the health worker crisis is essential to achieve the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goal to reduce the number of children who die before their fifth birthday by two-thirds by 2015.