Distribution and performance of rural health workers in Papua New Guinea.

As part of a study of the costs of rural health services in Papua New Guinea, an examination was made of the distribution and performance of rural health staff. The cost study and the use of a staffing model which related the staffing of health facilities to their workload both yielded valuable new data about the cost, distribution and productivity of rural health staff. Key findings of the workforce study included an inequitable distribution of staff among facilities, concentration on curative activities, better performance of staff of church run facilities and consequential variations between different categories of health worker in the allocation of work time to priority programmes. These findings are already being used to guide Papua New Guinea's health policy. They have also opened up several new important questions, such as the impact of different categories and mixes of staff on quality of health centre performance.