Sustainable Outcomes

Invest in the retention of trained healthcare workers for the long term.

Because many of the students whom the Touch Foundation supports come from the rural areas, they are likely to return to their villages post-graduation to provide treatment to their families and communities.

However, in 2008, in our Lake Zone study, we found that up to 20% of healthcare graduates never make it to their first posts and that an additional 10% leave before the end of their first year. The sheer scale of the health needs, coupled with isolation and lack of career development opportunities, rather than pay, tend to be the main reasons why these newly trained doctors and nurses leave their posts in remote regions.

To address this issue of attrition, Touch is developing a Healthcare Management Program that will improve health worker efficiency. (A 20-30% increase in healthcare worker productivity is equivalent to adding 7,000 new healthcare workers to the system.)

We are also establishing a faculty development program to address the lack of qualified basic sciences (non-clinical) faculty as well as a Careers Office to place and support healthcare workers.