WONCA Rio statement 2016

At the WONCA World conference opening ceremony, in Rio de Janeiro, WONCA President, Prof Michael Kidd released the “Rio Statement” calling for all countries to increase the number of family doctors to achieve high quality comprehensive primary care and universal health coverage.

WONCA Rio statement 2016

The World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) calls for all countries to increase the number of family doctors in order to achieve high quality comprehensive primary care and universal health coverage.

Effective strategies include:
improving the skills of doctors already working in the community;
recognising Family Medicine as a specialty and enhancing the academic basis of the discipline;
strengthening the family medicine experience of all medical students;
actively recruiting more medical graduates into more post graduate family medicine training programmes;
giving all family doctors and members of their teams the resources to carry out their work, recognising their contribution, and ensuring their retention in the workforce – all in order to deliver excellent cost-effective people centred care.

see Michael Kidd's conference opening address