V23E3

JAHWF Conference
Just another abbreviation?
“Pharmacists will retain their essential role in
dispensing and supply of medicines”, “Norway has
new a medicine service which helps patients with the
adherence to their medication”, “Ireland vaccinates
in pharmacies as well as the UK! This raises the
level of vaccination across the population”, “A New
pharmacy contract negotiated in Portugal includes
many pharmacy services”.
These and many other tweets could have been read
under the hashtag #JAHWF between 17th and 19th
February 2015, when the 3rd Conference of JAHWF
took place. But JAHWF? What is it? Another of many
abbreviations? Exactly! Literally! The abbreviation
stands for Joint Action for Health Workforce Planning
and Forecasting which deals with the shortage (but
also oversupply) of healthcare workers. During this
two-days conference, I had the pleasure to join other
European stakeholders and discuss about the future
of, us, the healthcare workers.
Starting with the symposium which was moderated
by Michel Van Hoegaerden, the Joint Action Health
Workforce Programme Manager from Belgium,
several speakers shared their key notes. We had
the opportunity to hear from several members
of Ministries of Health in Bulgaria, but also the
Secretaries of State from Slovakia (Mario Mikloši)
and Moldova (Nicolae Jelamschi), as well as
Directorate General for health and food safety from
the European Commission (Caroline Hager) and also
Federal Public Service of Health (Michel Devriese)
and European Observatory of Health Systems and
Policies (Irene A. Glinos) were present. The main
outcome was that Europe already faces a shortage
of healthcare professionals. According to WHO, in
2035, we will lack 18 million healthcare workers.
“Young professionals are stem
cells of the healthcare system”
After the symposium, parallel sessions took place,
which allowed participants to choose the part
of Joint Action they were interested in. I chose to
attend a session with the topic of Health Workforce
Education Abroad: “Is this a business, an opportunity,
a need, a real brain drain or all four?” We started
the session with a very interesting presentation
delivered by professor Ian Cumming, member of
Health Education England, who shared the United
Kingdom’s perspective and lessons learned from
training and migration between their four countries.
During the presentation, professor Cumming
compared the situation in all four countries of the
United Kingdom to help us understand the topic.
An interesting project that derived from the
collaboration of Germany and Bulgaria was
introduced as the next part of the programme.
In Germany, more than 40 000 youngsters apply
for a medical faculty per year, however, only a
small percentage can make it due to the capacity
of faculties, and this small percentage does not
cover the needs of the German healthcare system.
Therefore, Germans paired up with Bulgarians to
yearly send German students to finish their education
in Bulgaria, where the capacity is higher. German
students shall return after their studies to boost the
healthcare workforce.
To see the perspective of students as well, we were
able to hear the presentation of medical students from
the University of Varna, two being Bulgarian and two
German. The comparison of both systems of education
took place and an interesting discussion arose.
24 European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association