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Limited water supply among challenges faced by Region Ten health workers -Health official assures remedial measures being implemented
The unavailability of potable water is paramount among the concerns facing Community Health Workers [CHW] in Region Ten. But according to Senior Health Visitor [ag], Ms. Karen King, measures are being put in place to address this.
According to King, the Region is committed to addressing this especially daunting concern, urgently.
Stressing the importance of water, the health official said, “You cannot do much without water. You must have water when we speak about hygiene…We need water to wash our hands as we are also dealing with body fluids.”
“We are dealing with babies and we need to wash our hands after each child because we just can’t use hand sanitizer because not everyone is ok with that,” said King. She took into consideration that several of the region’s health posts and centres are situated in far flung communities.
King said that currently health centres at Christainburg and Amelia’s Ward have been facing the water shortage challenge for over a month.
But the challenges are not limited to water alone.
King said that some of the facilities do not have lighting and this is another concern that has been raised by a number of CHWs.
She said that because of the lighting situation these facilities are not readily equipped with vaccine storage. In recognition of this dilemma, King said that efforts are being made to aggressively explore ways to have it addressed.
She, however, noted that with all three counties being a part of Region 10, the existing challenges can be significant when it comes to reaching all of the affected facilities in a timely manner.
Senior Health Visitor [ag], Ms. Karen King
King noted that for the facilities that are encountering lighting difficulties it would result in them being unable to properly store vaccines.
Giving an insight into the geographic challenges of the region, King said that “it requires personnel travelling out one day to uplift the vaccines, then taking it back into their areas in order to facilitate the vaccination process.”
This, she noted, will result in patients at times being inconvenienced since accessing the vaccines would be challenging at times because of the inability to store the vaccines.
“It means that these Community Health Workers [are hard-pressed] to travel out to collect the vaccines, then taking it back into their areas to vaccinate the children but we are working quite feverishly [to address this]. I must say that our RHO [Regional Health Officer] is working quite feverishly to acquire cold storage so that these vaccines can be properly stored,” King said.
Even as the health official gave assurance that efforts are being put in place to address the concerns, she reiterated that because of the locations there is likely to be continued concerns raised before a permanent solution is realised.
She, nevertheless, praised the efforts of RHO, Dr. Pansy Armstrong, who she said has been working very hard to improve conditions for both health workers and patients visiting heath facilities within Region Ten.
She noted that RHO Armstrong, because of her understanding and experience, has been bringing about a number of positive changes that are expected to boost the health sector within Region Ten.
This laudable development, she assured, will serve to eradicate the health challenges in the region in the near future.
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