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{
"id": 1144736,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1144736/?format=api",
"text_counter": 255,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. Martin Owino (",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "service at Level 1. Our healthcare structure system is from Levels 1 to VI. What this Bill is addressing is community health workers at Level 1 connecting to Level II. This is in each and every unit led by community health workers and the oversight is done by the community extension workers who are located at the health center level. This Bill, therefore, provides a legislative framework for recognition, tooling, and licensing of community health workers so as to regulate their practice and provide for establishment of the Community Health Workers Council to coordinate their services. The formation of the Community Health Workers Council will help bring order at level one services by facilitating community health workers’ identification, provision of nationwide uniforms and varying compensation through stipends and acceptable resource conduit for donors. I want to emphasis this because right now, so many donors are willing to sponsor, but they are not willing to put money through county governments. The council will give a conducive environment for donors to donate towards the compensation of the community health workers. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, locally and globally, community health workers are called many names. Locally, they are called nkaitoiyok in Maasai, nyambera in Luo, health coach, community health advisors, community health volunteers, family advocates, health educators, outreach workers, peer counselors, patient navigators, health interpreters, public health aid and so on. This Bill wants to streamline all those names into community health workers. You cannot achieve universal health care (UHC) by volunteers because these are people who also have children, needs and school fees to pay and they have to be compensated regularly in one way or the other. That is why we prefer, as a matter of name Community Health Workers and not Volunteers. Many health care providers especially at the county level fear that compensating community health workers fully is more expensive. When this Bill is enacted and community health workers are empowered and motivated, the cost of health care will go down. I want to allay fears that investing in community health workers will reduce the cost of health care in this country. Article 43 of the Constitution provides that every person has the right to the highest attainable standard of health. This include the right to health care services among other rights. That can only be achieved by the support of motivated and coordinated community health workers. Today, Kenya is working towards achieving universal health coverage by 2030 in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. A key factor in achieving these goals is the provision of community health services which will be delivered by the cadre we are talking about. Consequently, community health is a flagship project under the Kenya’s Vision 2030 and it is recognised at level one of health care, pursuant to the First Schedule to the Health Act 2017. The concept of the community health workers is implemented through community health units, which could also be called sub-locations where they operate. Every community health unit serves about 5,000 people. So, each unit is assigned one senior community health worker, a community health assistant and ten community health workers. In short, we have a full structure in delivering health care services even up to the household. If you take a sub-location and assign ten, that figure is still higher because it will force the community health worker to care for between 50-200 people, but we are trying to enact this Bill into an Act that will be structured and more will be recruited, trained and assigned in the locations. Health workers who provide preventive, promotive, curative and rehabilitative system make the whole care, but the most important is the one in the lower pyramid of healthcare, and those are services that are given at the household level, and the person who plays that part is the community health worker. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for informationpurposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}