The fragile core of care: reframing the well-being of health professionals as critical infrastructure.

Abstract

While global health policy often centers patient outcomes, a dangerous oversight persists: the neglect of healthcare professionals' well-being as foundational to system effectiveness. Burnout, attrition, and moral injury are mounting across countries, yet health systems continue to treat their workforce sustainability as peripheral. Drawing on evidence from workforce trends, burnout statistics, and systems engineering, this commentary argues that healthcare professionals' well-being must be reframed as critical infrastructure. The piece contends that sustainability in healthcare depends on policy architectures that embed protections for health professionals, including structural supports like real-time workload monitoring, enforceable staffing ratios, and integrated mental health services. The neglect of health professionals' well-being is not just a human resource challenge-it is a design flaw that compromises the viability of care delivery itself. Without urgent recalibration, health systems risk brittleness, inequity, and collapse under surging demands. This commentary urges a paradigm shift in how we conceptualize, design, and govern health systems, beginning with the foundational recognition that care cannot be sustainable if its health professionals are not.