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Corrado Cancedda and colleagues outline a framework for health professional training initiatives in low-income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to articles in previous issues including "What is an Non-physician Clinician?" by F. Mullan and colleagues, "Does the Increasing Clinical Burden Permit us to Leave Physicians Untrained for Their Non-clinical Roles?" by D. Dovlo.

Lay health workers (LHWs) are individuals who participate in a variety of health services, even though they have no formal professional training. They have been used in a variety of settings, especially where health care needs outstrip available human resources. Lesotho faces a severe human resource shortage as it attempts to manage its HIV pandemic, with more than 25% of the population infected with HIV. This article reports on a program that provided HIV services in seven rural clinics in Lesotho. LHWs played an important role in the provision of HIV services that ranged from translation, adherence counseling, voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) for HIV and patient triage, to medication distribution and laboratory specimen processing. Training the LHWs was part of the clinic physicians' responsibilities and thus required no additional funding beyond regular clinic operations. This lent sustainability to the training of the LHWs. This paper describes the recruitment, training, activities, and perceptions of the LHW work between June 2006 and December 2008. LHWs participated successfully in the care of thousands of people with HIV in Lesotho and their experience can serve as a model for other countries facing the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the Human Resources for Health Program in Rwanda, which aims to address the shortage in health professionals in the country. A brief history of the shortage in health professionals in the country is presented. It mentions the total numbers of physicians, nurses and midwives, as well as hospitals in the country in 2011. The government is planning to conduct residency and training programs for health professionals.