Experts brought together by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have agreed to joint guidelines on health services and HIV/AIDS. The new guidelines are a move to help protect the safety and health of workers that deal with HIV/AIDS and they are designed to ’ensure a functioning and healthy medical work force’.
The background for the guidlines is that while access to healthcare is a basic human right, provision of healthcare remains problematic. HIV/AIDS adds to already existing problems such as increasing costs, structural adjustment policies and difficult working conditions. The WHO points out that the impact of HIV/AIDS often is worst where the health systems are the weakest. The infection of healthcare personnell further increases the problems.
The key issues treated in the joint guidelines are:
Preventing and containing transmission risks
Social dialogue, including all types of negotiation, consultation and information sharing among governments, employers and workers
Information, education and training in order to sensitize healthcare workplaces to HIV/AIDS related issues and the rights and needs of patients and workers
Focusing on gender, as the majority of healtcare workers are women
The joint guidelines will be presented to the 293rd session of the ILO Governing Body in June 2005 for approval. Once adopted they will be translated into several languages and disseminated by the ILO and WHO. This will be complemented by social dialogue activities and training to encourage implementation.
