Elena Neaga: A day in the life of a rural family doctor in Moldova

Elena Neaga is a family doctor in a rural area of the Republic of Moldova. Here, she shares the events of her day and her experience in providing health services to the community.

According to data from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Social Protection of the Republic of Moldova, the country has 1622 general practitioners working in 1681 localities. However, a quarter of villages do not have a resident family doctor.

The WHO Country Office in the Republic of Moldova has supported the national health authorities in developing a new vision for multidisciplinary primary health care in the country. To advance universal health coverage, WHO is also helping to strengthen the country’s capacity in designing, evaluating and implementing attraction, recruitment and retention policies for the health workforce. This includes supporting efforts to attract and retain health workers in rural locations, in line with WHO’s evidence-based recommendations on recruiting and retaining health workers in underserved areas.

“Motivation and job satisfaction are key to health worker attraction and retention, as Elena’s personal story clearly shows,” notes Gabrielle Jacob, who leads the work on human resources for health at WHO/Europe. “Motivation is influenced by a complex range of social, professional and economic factors, and we need to pay attention to all of these if we are to design and implement effective attraction, recruitment and retention strategies in support of universal health coverage.”