Rural retention of human resources for heath.

Background: Health workers are the heart of the health system in any country and are made up of health service providers and the health support workers. The global health workforce is over 59 million and 67% of them are the service providers.

Aim: The goal of this paper is to review the most relevant papers on the retention of health workers in the underserved areas and also on how to attract and retain health workers in the rural areas.

Methodology: A systematic search of literature was conducted. Grey literature (conference papers, technical reports), journal articles, abstracts, relevant books and internet articles were reviewed.

Results: Shortage of health workers are among the constraints in achieving the three health related Millenium Development Goals and this is more pronounced in the resource poor countries. These same resource poor countries are faced with international migration of health workers to the developed countries.

Conclusion: The numbers of health workers across the globe are few relative to need and this is more pronounced in the rural areas of the world who unfortunately bear the greater burden of disease and there is need for policies and actions that will help to attract and retain rural health workers.