ILO activities

Recent activities

• ILO/WHO/IOM Inter-regional Tripartite Meeting on Health Services
  Orientation to social dialogue for countries participating in the Action Programme on International Migration of Health Care Workers: The Supply Side
  Geneva, 22 March 2006
• Tripartite Meeting of Experts to Develop Joint ILO/WHO Guidelines on Health Services and HIV/AIDS
  Geneva, 19-21 April 2005

Previous activities

Within its Sectoral Activities Programme the ILO has held several meetings for the health sector. As health has to date been largely a public sector, these events were "joint" (i.e. bipartite) meetings involving governments and workers' representatives with some participation of private employers in this sector. A joint meeting on Social Dialogue in the Health Services: Institutions, capacity and effectiveness was held in 2002 and a sectoral meeting on Terms of Employment and Working Conditions in Health Sector Reforms was held in 1998. As preparation or follow-up of these meetings a number of reports and studies were published as working papers. In the biennium 1996-97 studies were prepared on the impact of restructuring and privatization on health service delivery and the work environment. Subregional workshops on the situation of health workers in Central and Eastern Europe took place in May 1997 in Prague and in 1999 in Almaty for Central Asian countries (see list of health publications).

As mentioned above, ILO organized jointly with the DSE and WHO an international round table on the impact of public sector reform on health personnel. Country case studies, the round table discussions and the list of critical questions to be answered before a reform is implemented have been published (see list of health publications).

In recognition of the increase in reported incidents of violence in the health sector and the particular vulnerability of health care workers to violence, ILO together with ICN, WHO and PSI carried out a joint research project from 2000 to 2002. The work initiated in the health sector will be used as a model for other sectors where violence in the workplace increasingly emerges as an occupational hazard. Several country case studies and cross-cutting theme studies provide comprehensive information on magnitude, patterns and complexity of the problem. The joint programme developed and published as a practical tool framework guidelines for addressing workplace violence in the health sector.