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The availability of an adequate healthcare workforce is a key component in providing sufficient healthcare and attaining the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3. This article has explored the general availability of healthcare workers in selected regions globally. It has gone further ahead to study the health workforce situation in Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Philippines. The article has established that there is a global shortage of healthcare workers. High-income countries have up to 6.5 more healthcare workers than developing countries. In all countries, there is an inequitable distribution of healthcare workers, with most of them preferring to work in urban centres at the expense of the rural population. In Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Philippines, there is also a healthcare workforce problem. The healthcare workforce shortage in these countries is caused by, among other factors, high cost of training, brain drain, resignations because of poor pay, long working hours, and COVID-19-related resignations. The Covid-19 pandemic placed an unexpected strain on countries’ healthcare systems globally. In Southeast Asia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Cambodia were no exception. The study has established that there is an urgent need for countries to initiate significant reforms in their health sector if they are to attain SGD 3.
Le et al. (Sun,) studied this question.