Deployment of Community Health Promoters (CHPs) is mooted as one of the best ways to fight increased cases of non-communicable diseases (NCD)in Murang’a.
During this year’s Mashujaa Day celebrations, Governor Irungu Kang’ata launched the community health programme where 1, 932 CHPs were deployed to support primary healthcare in the county.
The programme to engage CHPs in the health sector, takes shape after the President assents Primary Health Care Bill 2023.
The County Community Health Strategy Focal Person Mr. Julius Ng’ang’a said they have issued the CHPs with a kit to help in testing non communicable diseases at villages.
Speaking to KNA on Friday, Ng’ang’a observed that some members of the public have diabetes and high blood pressure conditions but they were not aware.
“Each CHP is given a kit with testing machines to help detect diabetes, high blood pressure among other ailments. This will help early detections of some ailments thus better for effective management and treatment of the diseases,” he stated.
He further said the CHPs were also equipped with digital tablets to record and store collected health data of the people they have served.
“The collected data will assist medical officers in the process of treating people referred to them from villages,” he remarked.
Apart from testing and monitoring some non-communicable diseases, Ng’ang’a said the CHPs would also be testing some diseases like malaria and handling minor injuries.
“They will also be monitoring expectant mothers, checking nutrition on infants and deworming to children,” he added.
He noted with the help of CHPs, the county would strive to tackle at house level cases of high blood pressure, worms and malnutrition among children especially those aged five years and below.
Nga’ng’a further said the selected CHPs were currently waiting to be taken through a thorough training on how to handle health matters in the villages saying former community health volunteers who served in the previous regime were well conversant with the tasks they were expected to be doing in villages.
“Those who were recently recruited need training which the county government is currently working on and once they are trained, they will be deployed in various villages within the county,” he noted.
The coordinator underscored the need to educate members of the public on matters to do with health, saying people needed to know ways of preventing themselves from contracting diseases.
“The CHPs will play a key role in support of primary health care by educating members of the public on ways of avoiding to contract diseases,” he added.
By Bernard Munyao
