Do your bit: Focus on days highlighting international issues International Days and Observations
World Health Day
7 April
April 7th of each year is designated as World Health Day and celebrated by the 191 member countries of the World Health Organization to emphasize significant issues in public health of worldwide concern. World Health Day offers a unique opportunity to raise global awareness of a specific health theme.

In 2006, World Health Day (celebrated annually on 7 April), will be devoted to the health workforce crisis. On this day around the globe, hundreds of organizations will host events to draw attention to the global health workforce crisis and celebrate the dignity and value of working for health.

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Health workers - the people who provide health care to those who need it - are the heart of health systems. But around the world, the health workforce is in crisis - a crisis to which no country is entirely immune. The results are evident: clinics with no health workers, hospitals that cannot recruit or keep key staff.

There is a chronic global shortage of health workers, as a result of decades of underinvestment in their education, training, salaries, working environment and management. This has led to a severe lack of key skills, rising levels of career switching and early retirement, as well as national and international migration.

- World Health Organization

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