Rural health workers key in strengthening services

 

Syriacus Buguzi and Frank Kimboy
The Citizen Reporters

Ifakara. The government is now banking on rural health workers as a strategy to strengthen public health infrastructure, the deputy minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Seif Rashid said on Monday.

Dr Rashid made this revelation at the opening of a multi-country planning workshop organised by the Tanzania Training centre for International Health (TTCIH) in Ifakara, Morogoro.

“Many countries, including Tanzania, are currently revitalising primary healthcare delivery systems and strengthening the overall public health infrastructure,’’ he said in a speech.

The three-day symposium, which has brought together participants from the US and Sub-Saharan Africa, aimed at discussing ways to integrate professionally trained lay-community members into national health workforce.

The plan, campaigned under the theme: “One Million Community Health Workers’’ is targeting the lower cadre health workers who in Tanzania, include assistant medical officers, clinical officers as well as rural medical aid officers.

“There is strong evidence which shows that embedding community health workers within primary healthcare systems is a powerful way to improve health care for malaria, TB and HIV/Aids as well as reducing child and maternal deaths, among other high priority conditions,’’ Dr Rashid emphasised.

This development puts the strategy of capitalising on community health workers back on the agenda as countries work towards accelerating achievement of millennium development goals four, five and six.