Teams of healthworkers require division of labour to make sure people know the tasks they should focus on. (Photo: Carrie Teicher)

The principle of division of labour is that work must be shared or divided fairly amongst the team. Normally, in a team, there needs to be division of labour, where each category of staff exercises their particular skill towards achieving specific objectives. The role of management is to assign a balanced proportion of each type of worker to the work to be done.

There has been an outbreak of diarrhoeal disease in your community. A prevention and control committee has formed in response to the epidemic and identified a number of activities which will be needed to sort out the problem. The work (a–d) must be divided amongst the staff and groups available (1–4), who all have different skills. Who will do which activity? Match (a–d) with (1–4).

(a) Mobilising the community (1) Water committee
(b) Check medicine supplies (2) Community administration
(c) Ensure water is treated and safe (3) Health professional
(d) Give health education and advocacy (4) Health personnel
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You should have:

  1. The community administration and the health professionals must mobilise the community.
  2. Health personnel must assure the supply of medicine.
  3. The water committee should ensure that the water is treated and safe.
  4. The health professional should give health education and advocacy.