•The CHVs are tasked with making home visits to deliver health promotion messages and establish protocols for Community-Based Maternal and Newborn Health
•They are supervised by Community Health Extension Workers and cover Community Health Units of about 100 households.
Image: FILE
We have proposed a policy that all community health workers must be attached to a clinic, a level 2, 3 or even level 4 hospital, because they have been working on their own, therefore supervision has been largely weakHealth CS Mutahi Kagwe
All Community Health Volunteers in the country will be registered biometrically in a proposed structure by the government.
And they will be better equipped.
Priority will be registration and identification of CHWs working in the informal settlements and densely populated areas where security is an issue.
Kenya has more than 9,000 CHVs working in the 47 counties.
The CHV pay home visits to deliver health messages and establish protocols for community-based maternal and newborn health, among other issues
They are supervised by Community Health Extension Workers and operate within Community Health Units covering about 100 households.
However, this has been increased to more than 200 households due to the vastness of some regions and high attrition due to the lack of support and motivation from the formal healthcare system.
“This is particularly important in densely populated areas in Kibera, Mukuru kwa Njenga, Uthiru, Kawangware, those kinds of places. There there is also the issue of security where people can go around pretending to be CHWs and engage in all kinds of criminal activities,” Health CS Mutahi Kagwe said.
The policy will ensure all the CHVs are trained and attached to a health facility. The training will include administering vaccines and assisting in all other ways needed for UHC to work effectively.
So far, 10 counties have passed the Community Health Workers and Volunteers Act to support the group.
“Another thing is about equipping these workers so that even as they move around the counties, we don’t just want them to go there, write on a piece of paper which disappears,” Kagwe said.
“We want to ensure data that can be used now and in the future must be recorded in gadgets that are then transferred automatically to the county information centres and the national information centre.”
As the country gears up to achieve Universal Health Coverage, the government has said CHVs play a key role in the programme, hence, the need to entrench them in the payment structure.
CHV work is purely voluntary as stipulated in the community health services motto, “Our health, our responsibility”.
Their performance is assessed using a checklist, including the number of household visits, total number of referrals such as referring children for immunisation or pregnant women for antenatal care and participation in community mobilisation.
“We have proposed a policy that all community health workers must be attached to a clinic, a level 2, 3 or even level 4 hospital, because they have been working on their own, therefore supervision has been largely weak,” the CS said.
CHVs are a key part of the health workforce, linking communities with the health system. They play a vital role in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, with home visits, education and emergencies involving other ailments.
(Edited by V. Graham)