Corporate News
Dr Kevin De-Cock of the Centre for Disease Control, Health secretary
James Macharia and JICA country representative Hideo Eguchi at a past
function. JICA has donated Sh200 million to Kenya's Community Health
Strategy. PHOTO | DIANA NGILA | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Nation Media Group
By SARAH OOKO
In Summary
Kenya’s Community Health Strategy (CHS) programme has
received a Sh200 million boost following a donation by the Japan
International Corporation Agency (JICA).
Mr Hideo Eguchi, the Chief Representative of JICA's Kenya
Office, noted that a huge proportion of these finances will be used to
strengthen the capacity of county governments to facilitate effective
implementation of CHS at the grassroots.
“We need to embrace this community approach to
healthcare as it is significant to Kenya achieving universal access to
health services,” said Ms Khadijah Kassachoon, Permanent Secretary (PS)
for Health during Thursday’s handing over ceremony which marked the
culmination of a three year technical cooperation between the Ministry
of Health (MOH) and JICA.
The pact is aimed at strengthening MOH capacity to
deliver community health services in Kenya. She noted that since the
implementation of CHS began in 2008, there has been an improvement in
immunisation, antenatal care and reduction of childhood diseases.
“Major epidemics like cholera and malaria have also
not occurred in the last five years as mothers know what to do to
facilitate prevention,” stated Dr Kassachoon.
The CHS approach seeks to improve the health status
of Kenyans by involving and engaging communities to take charge of
their health. Through the approach, communities are sensitised to adopt
healthy lifestyles including good hygiene, family planning, regular
exercises and healthy diets so as to prevent a myriad of infectious and
non-communicable diseases.
People also learn how to make better use of health facilities in their areas.
Prof Miriam Were, CHS Goodwill Ambassador, noted
that MOH started implementing the community strategy after a 2004
evaluation of Kenya’s health status yielded unsatisfactory results.
“We noticed that despite the county’s huge
investment in healthcare, our people were still sick. Mothers and
children were dying. And HIV was wiping away families. Hospitals were
there, but only few people used them.”
She adds: “So we realised that we had to reach out
to communities. We needed to empower them, so that they could take
charge of their health. They had to know why it was important for them
to be healthy.”
Since then, some progress has been made. A 2010
UNICEF report showed that in regions where the CHS strategy was being
implemented, there was a significant decrease in maternal and child
mortality.
The CHS goals are largely implemented by community
health volunteers (CHVs) who are chosen by people from their
communities. “These people are known on the ground and are thus best
suited to reach out to the community,” Prof Were noted. She said that
the CHVs also play a key role of linking sick people in the community to
health facilities.
The three year technical cooperation between the
Ministry of Health (MOH) and JICA led to the development of CHS
policies, guidelines and tools which will be used to scale up community
health services to all parts of Kenya.
“But we need to disseminate these documents to the
counties, facilitate advocacy and sensitise health officials there on
how to implement and sustain gains already made by the community health
strategy,” noted Ms Makiko Kinoshita, Chief Advisor for the JICA CHS
project.
Dr Maurice Siminyu, Chair of the County Executive
Council noted that following the devolution of health services, each
county has selected a focal person to foresee the implementation of CHS
in their regions.
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