Excerpt from an article originally published in The Hill.
This week marks the annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), when world leaders, business executives, non-governmental organizations and issue experts come together in New York to discuss the state of the world.
As officials press forward on how to effectively achieve the sustainable development goals and make universal health coverage (UHC) a reality, far too few discussions will take place on one topic that affects the lives of over 6 billion people living in low- and middle-income countries: health workers.
Health workers are at the heart of the incredible advances made in containing epidemic outbreaks, making it possible to dramatically expand immunization coverage and the increases in maternal and child survival rates.
They stand at the front lines of care, running toward the most dangerous situations when most are running the other away. They are nurses, doctors, midwives, community health workers, lab technicians, and more. And as the numbers show, they are, for the most part, women.
We know that investing in health workers is one of the best investments a nation can make.