ISLAMABAD (ILO News): Healthcare workers are the backbone of a country’s response to any pandemic or health-related emergency and their well-being is a prime priority for the Government. Decent Work, including safety and health at work, security and psychological wellness, good working conditions and social security are crucial for the necessary protection of healthcare workers, enabling them to perform to their full abilities, when most needed. For this purpose, the Government of Pakistan, in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) has initiated the HealthWISE programme in Pakistan.

The first ‘HealthWISE Introductory Workshop’ was held in Islamabad today. The workshop was organized by the Directorate of Workers’ Education (DWE) – a subsidiary of Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis & Human Resource Development (OP&HRD) – with the technical support of the ILO and the WHO. More than 30 healthcare workers and management representatives from 13 health institutions in Islamabad participated in the workshop. The Islamabad Capital Territory Healthcare Regulatory Authority (IHRA) was also among the participants. The workshop participants highly appreciated the HealthWISE programme and expressed their keen interest to implement this programme in their health institutions. Representatives from IHRA indicated that HealthWISE contents would be included in their regulatory framework to ensure wellbeing of healthcare workers.

At the concluding session of the workshop, the Chief Guest, Mr Ishrat Ali, Federal Secretary Ministry of OP&HRD, expressed commitment of the Government of Pakistan to improve working conditions of all segments of workers – including those of healthcare workers. For this purpose, the Government is actively collaborating with relevant technical agencies. He thanked ILO and WHO for extending their technical support for the first time implementation of the HealthWISE in Pakistan. He emphasized to the workshop participants to objectively implement this new tool at their workplaces and thereby improve safety and health and working conditions of healthcare workers.

Speaking at the event, WHO Representative, Dr Palitha Mahipala, appreciated the joint efforts of ILO, WHO, and Ministry of OP&HRD to implement HealthWISE in Pakistan. He emphasized the importance of physical and psychological wellbeing of healthcare workers and advised participants to improve reporting of incidents for future improvements. He said that while numbers are important to assess the frequency of accidents, on the other hand, human stories are also important to understand the severity and impact of these incidents.

Ms Ingrid Christensen, Country Director ILO, highlighted the impact of COVID-19 on the safety and health and well-being of healthcare workers and stressed the importance of social dialogue between management and healthcare workers in order to undertake a risk assessment and in particular jointly to find solutions to improve the working environment and conditions, where needed. The HealthWISE can be a useful tool in this regards.

HealthWISE is being implemented in Pakistan as part of a joint ILO-WHO-OECD Project ‘Working for Health (W4H)’. As part of this project, ILO collaborated with the Directorate of Workers Education (DWE) for implementing HealthWISE programme. Subsequently, a three day ‘Training of Trainers’ was organized on 29th Septmember-1st October 2021 on HealthWISE where a team of six (6) national resource persons were trained on delivering HealthWISE Training. Subsequently, first introductory workshop was organized in Islamabad on 26th October 2021 and one introductory workshop will take place in Gilgit on 28th October 2021. After these introductory workshops, HealthWISE will be rolled out in 3-4 selected health institutions as a pilot. HealthWISE is designed for use by all who are concerned with improving workplaces in the health sector, including health workers and health-care managers, supervisors, workers’ and employers’ representatives, labour inspectors, occupational health specialists, trainers and educators.