In 2019, On Call Africa set a strategic objective: to have our comprehensive, primary-care-focused Community Health Worker (CHW) programme accredited by the Zambian Ministry of Health. What we have achieved since then, in partnership with the Ministry of Health, goes much further.
After consulting with the Community Health Unit, we learned that the Ministry of Health intended to establish its own comprehensive CHW training programme. This initiative aimed to address fragmentation in Zambia’s community health sector and improve access to comprehensive services, bringing healthcare closer to homes nationwide. Instead of pursuing our own agenda, we focused on supporting the Ministry in developing this new programme, incorporating lessons from international best practices, our own experiences, and input from existing CHWs and healthcare workers.
We are extremely proud to have played a key role in the development of Zambia’s new comprehensive Community Health Service Package. This includes the CHW training programme, the legal framework to protect CHWs, and standardized incentives to ensure they are fairly remunerated. All these elements were finalized and approved by the Ministry of Health in 2023. This year, we continued to support further enhancements to the national programme by developing standard operating procedures for supervising CHWs.
At the end of 2023, we began piloting this new national programme in partnership with the Ministry of Health at Chalimongela and Simoonga Health Posts. To date, we have trained the first 29 CHWs under the new model.
Last week, we supplied the 13 CHWs trained at Simoonga Health Post with bicycles, t-shirts, gumboots, bags, medical equipment, and diagnostic tools to enable them to carry out their duties. These CBVs have entered contracts with the Ministry of Health and will begin receiving salary payments from On Call Africa this month. The CHWs trained at Chalimongela Health Post will receive the same equipment and support starting next week. Over the next nine months, we will ensure that these highly skilled CHWs continue to receive salaries and supervision, while we monitor and evaluate their impact to help build the case for further investment.
In the meantime, we will begin training 15 CHWs at Chidi Health Post this month, and we are actively seeking funding to scale up the model in 2025. Our goal is to support the Ministry of Health in continuously improving the programme and building the case for a national rollout.
“We offer a lot of services… instead of people walking long distances to the clinic, when I am there in the community, it becomes easy for them, that’s the first reason I became a CHW, I love working for people around me”
Namakau – Community Health Worker – Simoonga Rural Health Post
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