The Ministry of Health (MoH) has registered 6.4 million households in an effort to strengthen community health services across the country.
State Department for Public Health and Professional Standards Principal Secretary (PS) Mary Muthoni said the registration exercise which is ongoing targets to capture 12 million households for effective planning and enhancement of service delivery.
The exercise comes after the successful engagement of 107, 800 Community Health Promoters (CHPs) across the country to help strengthen primary health care.
The PS noted that health outcomes had tremendously improved since the launch of the CHP programme adding that the ongoing registration of households would enable the ministry to know their exact number and where they were in order to serve them better.
Speaking at Rabuor in Kisumu County during an assessment tour of the programme’s implementation, Muthoni said the ministry has rolled out training programmes and capacity building for the CHPs to ensure they offer cutting edge services.
The training, she said, captures first aid, testing for hypertension, blood sugar, reminding mothers about the immunization calendar and other common public health interventions.
She added that the modules have been reviewed to include communicable diseases, climate change and the Social Health Insurance sensitisation.
“We had taken them through the training and kitted them but we shall continue to empower them with the necessary skills and knowledge to ensure they play their role as our primary care providers,” she said.
So far, she said the CHPs have visited 3.9 million Kenyans suffering from diabetes and referred 60,000 of them to health facilities.
Additionally, 3.8 million Kenyans have been attended to by the CHPs for blood pressure with some 180,000 cases referred to health facilities.
The CHPs, she added, have also visited 180, 000 children who have been tested for common ailments affecting children and proper measures taken to refer them to health care facilities.
The PS said the information was available at a click of a button following the rollout of digital health, with the records captured by the CHP’s gadgets relayed to her office in Afya House.
She noted that as the government rolls out the new Social Health Insurance in July, CHPs have been tasked to sensitise the community to register in order to access free health services when referred to level 2 and 3 facilities.
“We have asked them to sensitise people in their respective households to register so that they benefit from these services once we roll out,” she said.
By Chris Mahandara
