Proper Distribution of Specialist Physicians: A Strategy Towards Realizing Justice and Equity in Access to Health Care Services

Background: Paving the way for having equitable access to medical interventionprograms is the most important action that a health system can take in realizingsocial justice. This study aims at examining proper distribution of specialistphysicians as an strategy towards realizing justice and equity in access to and useof health services as well as providing recommendations for policy-makers.Methods: This is a review-narrative and bibliographic research that used databasesconsisting of Magiran, Irandoc, Iranmedex, SID, PubMed, Scopus, EMBASE,Direct Science with the key words including Specialists, Health, Equity,Accessibility, Health system and Human resources. The data were collected from1990 to 2015.Results: There are evidences of regions in the world that still are lacking sufficientnumber of physician workforce and are not only faced with challenges ofrecruiting, but also with retention of specialist physicians. In fact, migration ofhuman workforce from deprived regions to more organized and prosperous partshas been a factor influencing workforce shortage in these regions; thereby it addsfurther problem of recruitment and retention of specialist workforce.Conclusions: Human workforce distribution (Specialist or non-specialists) hasdirect effects on realizing equity and justice in health system; it also influenceseconomy of a given country indirectly. On the other hand, compensation is one ofthe important incentives that drives workforce behavior and makes them moreinclined towards working in deprived regions. Taking the above mentioned ideas, itis recommended for the health system to use more economic incentives and insureproper distribution that fits individuals needs. Using various tax policies indeprived, wealthy, and generally different geographical regions is one of the mostimportant incentives available to leverage this purpose.

کلیدواژه ها:

Specialist Physicians ، Equity ، Accessibility ، Human resources ، Health