CHP
Public Health Principal Secretary (PS) Mary Muthoni has said that Community Health Promoters (CHPs) across the country have been able to register 7.43 million households against the targeted 12.5 million families.
Speaking in Murang’a County, Muthoni underscored CHPs tireless dedication in primary health promotion, disease prevention and bridging the gap between communities and health facilities as invaluable. “CHPs are the backbone of primary health care. Everything that we do in primary health care is hinged on them,” she said, adding that they are a bridge for the community to health care facilities.
Muthoni said over 7.43 million households have directly benefited from the healthcare services offered by CHPs across the country. She added that in a normal household in Kenya, you will find that we have about five people per family. The PS said 3.4 million persons have been screened for hypertension and 228, 000 out of these have been referred to medical facilities for treatment.
“This means many people in our households are living without knowing whether they have other ailments or underlying conditions,” she said. “Our normal operations sometimes as a people is that if you have a headache for example, you visit a nearby chemist to buy drugs and then you self-medicate,” added the PS.
Community health workers during a home visit in Murang’a County.
She further said 188,000 pregnant women have been identified and 77, 000 of them who did not know they needed to go to a health facility were advised to visit one for care. “The Ministry urges expectant mothers to go for pre-natal and post-natal care to ensure that they are checked upon and monitored by professional health care givers,” said Muthoni.
She noted that data is important when it comes to assisting the Ministry in terms of knowing the number of people who are affected by a certain disease, which will enable us to accurately provide treatment and solutions to such health challenges
“It is important when we have figures we are able to know how many people we are treating in the country and how many people are referred for further treatment,” she said. The PS retaliated the importance of CHPs promising to support them in fulfilling their duties, noting that Kenya has 107,000 community health promoters across the county.
“As the national government, we appreciate our CHPs and the program’s impact, since it was launched in September last year,” she said, adding that they have been the unsung heroes of healthcare, serving their communities tirelessly.