In light of flawed reporting by some community health workers (CHWs), the Health Department of Region 10 has begun employing remedial measures in the form of quarterly meetings and simultaneous training workshops which seek to highlight the shortcomings.
Currently, such a meeting is ongoing, targeting some 40 CHWs.
According to Region 10’s Senior Health Visitor [ag], Ms. Karen King, the three-day review forum is one that gives insight to enable better understanding of not only the achievements but challenges that the health workers face. “For three days we will be looking at several issues, among them being the vaccination coverage for the health centres and health posts within Region 10. We will also be doing a training workshop as we seek to improve the skills and knowledge of our CHWs as they are our partners in addressing healthcare effectively within the region,” King informed.
According to her, addressing shortcomings in the delivery of healthcare is pivotal if continued successes in health care delivery are to be realised within the region. King disclosed that one of the major challenges facing several of the CHWs is the issue of effective reporting, thus the workshop is aimed at improving their skills to better report on the tasks they are assigned.
King disclosed that currently the Region is faced with the improperly done reports submitted by CHWs, a situation that must urgently be addressed.
To address this dilemma, she said, there is the need to better educate them on the appropriate format and style that must be adhered to. “We have found that several of the reports submitted by the CHWs are not done properly or to the standards that have been established. Therefore, we are hoping to use part of the workshop to ensure that we can inform and sensitise them on how they need to go about in doing their reports because it is very important,” King stressed.
She added that enhancing their skills in report writing and compilation is important noting that it is these very reports submitted by the various health centres and health posts that are used to compile the regional report which is then submitted to the Ministry of Public Health.
Such reports, King said, help to ascertain the performance of individual regions.
With improved report writing, King is convinced that it would certainly reduce several of the flaws and difficulties the Region has found with the some submitted reports.
