Consultative Workshop on Community Health Workers Ends at Shangri La Hotel

Freetown, Aug. 3, 015 (MOHS) – The three-day Consultative Workshop on the National Community Health Workers Programme for Sierra Leone has ended with recommendations, suggestions and comments for the way forward at the Sangri La Hotel in Freetown. A group photo of participants and stakeholders at the workshop

The workshop was organized by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation Directorate of Primary Health Care in collaboration with the International Growth Centre (IGC).

Making his address, the Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Brima Kargbo, disclosed that the use of community members to render certain basic health services to their communities is a concept that has existed for at least 50 years.

He reiterated that Community Health Workers (CHWs) can play a crucial role in broadening access and coverage of health services in remote areas, and can undertake actions that lead to improve health outcomes.

“Community Health Worker programmes are neither the panacea for weak health systems nor a cheap option to provide access to health care for underserved population”, opined Chief Medical Officer.

Dr. Brima Kargbo informed his audience that CHWs do not replace the need for quality health care through highly skilled health care workers. He noted that their replacement is expected to play a complementary role, adding that they can play an important role in increasing access to health care and service between the community and the formal health system.

Sierra Leone, the Chief Medical Officer said has many types of community members working under different names and labels. He said as a Ministry, they acknowledged that CHWs represent an important health resource, and that was why they have been very careful over the years to put the right structure and mechanism in place.

Dr. Kargbo told the gathering that the three-day Consultative workshop will provide them the opportunity as stakeholders to understand the progress so far made, and to contribute to the way forward in accelerating the implementation of the CHW strategy.

Delivering the keynote address, Deputy Minister of Health and Sanitation 1, Mr. Foday Sawi said service delivery upholds at various levels within the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. Tertiary level he said characterized by few population for the sick with moral commitment to the task and responsibility at secondary level. The primary sector he said is a timely mixed back up of service delivery with the largest population, adding that though with hard to reach areas but must be fully engaged to have the desired results.

Professionals, Mr. Sawi maintained must be motivated to execute effective curative and preventive care. “Some innovative needs to be done to achieve our goal”, opined the Deputy Minister.

He observed that health facilities are constrained with few professional staff hence the need for Task Shifting. The Community Health Worker Mr. Sawi noted has become more significant and cannot be left out in public health activities and interventions, citing their importance in the fight against the Ebola virus disease.

He reiterated that our Action Plan should be more specific to properly define who is a Community Health Worker and how we get them mobilized and motivated.

The launching of the Community Health Workers Programme, Mr. Sawi said would contribute greatly to the primary health strategy and add value to its operational plans.

He encouraged the Consultative Workshop to come out with solid solution and very informative report that would make significant impact towards achieving the desired goals and objective of the programme.

Giving an overview of Community Health Workers Programme in Sierra Leone, the Director of Primary Health Care, Dr. Joseph Kandeh said the objective was to review the current CHW programme implementation successes and challenges.

He said the workshop also aimed at presenting evidence from national and international contexts on key challenges to be reviewed in the national programme, and to review the results of the work done by the CHW technical working group and feedbacks from the stakeholders.

Dr. Kandeh furthered that the consultative workshop was to facilitate discussions among experts and policy makers on key challenges to address issues for revisions to the national CHW Policy and Strategy.

JAK/KK/MOHS/SLENA

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