Building the Capacity Of Health Workers in South Sudan
Thomas Elikana screens an infant for malnutrition at the Maridi Primary Health Care Center (PHCC). He is one of the 13 health professionals trained on preventive and curative methods by the South Sudan country programme of Action Africa Help International (AAH-I). The training took place from 28 September to 3 October 2018 with support of the Ministry of Health. The objective of the training was to provide key health community leaders with essential health knowledge and skills.
Thomas screening an infant
Over 10,000 children die daily from preventable diseases such as measles and tuberculosis. In most high disease-burdened African countries, the shortage of health workers is compounded with limited education and training due to insufficient health teaching staff.
“I work as a primary health care supervisor in Mundri. I was very pleased when I was told I would benefit from this training. Such opportunities are rare within our health department. We learnt about health screenings and counselling to prevent disease occurrence and treatment, with an emphasis on the expanded program immunization,” said Thomas. “We also participated in a mandatory family health information collection process through community outreach. We were able to gather data on households’ nutrition status and medical history. This training was very practical and strengthened our case management skills which will be valuable in our work as we serve communities.”
Trainees during the family health information exercise
“The participants were drawn from 6 counties of the Equatoria state. This initiative is crucial to the improvement of quality health services. With this training we hope to lay the foundation for successful implementation of the Boma Health Initiative,” said Maridi Ministry of Health Director Alfonse Lohyre.
The Boma Health Initiative is a government-led health programme developed to increase access to quality health care services and to establish sustainable community health structures as an integral component of the national health system.
AAH South Sudan was established over 30 years ago and aligns its health operations to Sustainable Development Goal 3 in order to achieve quality and efficient access to healthcare services for all. AAH-I is implementing the Boma Health Initiative in Yei River, Amadi and Maridi States through the Regional Primary Health Care project that is funded by Bread for the World.