The Workload of a midwife in various types of task division in a Health Post

In spite of very brilliant achievements in Iran health system, there are some issues should be considered such as shortage and inappropriate distribution of resources and mismatching between the community health needs and the amount of human resources. An issue that is necessary to be considered by managers is appropriateness of human resources in service delivery units. Health Posts are one of these service delivery units. Different types of task division between midwife and family health worker in the Health Posts is totally possible. This study assesses the workload and number of required workforces in the Health Posts with different types of work division. Methods & Materials: In this study, a midwife’s workload was calculated and compared for different scenarios of task division in a Health Post in Kashan city using a combined approach considering need-based method of Pileroodi and utilization-based method of WHO named WISN method (Workload Indicator Staffing Need). If a midwife provides merely her own special services, the workload will be only 3.5% of overall family health workload in a Health Post with 12500 populations. If a midwife provides any services of maternal health program to all population of the Health Post in addition to her own special services, this proportion will be 24%. In these two scenarios one midwife and three family health workers are required. If a midwife provides special services to all population of the Health Post and provision of other services are divided between midwife and family health workers, their workloads are equal and just one midwife and two family health workers will be required. If a midwife provides any services of maternal health program to the Health Post populations completely, the workload will be less than that of family health worker. So dividing all of the services between midwife and family health workers, increases efficiency in addition to achieving equality in task division between staff and increasing accessibility.