What are Community Health Workers? 👩🏾⚕️👨🏾⚕️🏥 🚑 🗒
Community Health Workers are individuals from their respective community who support people through providing information on health. The majority of them also receive training that enables them to provide basic medical care to members of their community. Because Community Health Workers are from the community they serve, and are often chosen by community members, they are trusted sources of health information.
17 Ways Community Health Workers help out during the COVID-19 pandemic:
- Refer clients with COVID-19 from the community to health facilities.
- Conduct surveillance of COVID-19 cases and alert the health system.
- Report suspected COVID-19 cases to help with monitoring outbreaks.
- Provide a linkage between the community and health facilities.
- Conduct contact tracing and monitoring.
- Provide home-based care.
- Distribute information materials about handwashing and masking.
- Conduct demonstrations of handwashing, masking and social distancing in communities.
- Conduct home visits for prevention and management of the pandemic.
- Spearhead COVID-19 pandemic-related health talks and education in their communities.
- Facilitate establishment of handwashing points.
- Conduct monitoring of clients isolated in the quarantine facilities.
- Contribute to the improvement of health indicators.
- Hand out COVID-19 educational materials in the community.
- Help demystify myths around COVID-19 and vaccines.
- Provide psychosocial support.
- Support families with the burials and funerals of loved ones.
*Source: A Multi-Country Situation Assessment of Community Health Workers’ Preparedness to Support Health System Response to Prevention and Management of COVID-19 and Associated Gender Based Violence by Amref Health Africa
