Development of Healthcare Professionals and Leadership in Achieving Sustainability

Health is a universal human right, but the labour-intensive nature of healthcare with high staff cost, together with other healthcare challenges, have raised international concerns on the sustainability of healthcare systems. Having a sustainable healthcare workforce with continuous professional development requires international cooperation. The United Nations have adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals, where strategic leadership of governments is required to address the lack of healthcare workforce as highlighted in Goal 3. The use of healthcare technologies may complement healthcare, but from the perspective of holistic care, such high-tech approach could unlikely replace the high-touch needs of patients. Other possible practical solutions comprise recruitment of foreign-trained healthcare workers, professional substitution to delegate appropriate healthcare tasks to less trained ones, promotion of community health and increase in the number of healthcare trainees at universities, etc. In reality, the rise of nationalism has made this workforce shortage a political agenda. With the support of global, national and local examples, this chapter discusses the international cooperation, the leadership roles and practical difficulties of governments in maintaining a sustainable pool of competent healthcare human resources, and the possible impact of growing nationalism on the healthcare workforce crisis.