Accra, March 25, GNA- The Ghana Health Service (GHS) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have developed a working tool for health workers to facilitate community involvement and participation in healthcare.
The tool named Community Health Volunteer (CHV) and Community Health Management Committee (CHMC) flipchart was developed under the Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) for life project.
The CHPS for life project seeks to build a robust community health care system by bringing health care to the doorstep of people.
Dr Andrew Ayin, Deputy Director Policy, GHS, who was speaking at a dissemination workshop held in Accra, said the work tool developed would help bring healthcare close to people in the community, at the markets and workplaces.
He said the project would ensure that health containers are planted close to people to ensure easy access to health care.
“The flipchart would educate community health nurses on how to communicate with people in simple term to ensure that patients understand some disease conditions,” he said.
He said the tool would also make CHPS compounds more visible and enable individuals get more interested in their healthcare.
Mr Takuya Shizume, JICA representative in Ghana, said JICA was pleased to have a close collaboration with the United Nation Agencies, to undertake the project to improve access to quality community health service.
“We hope that the GHS can scale up the CHPS for life project and the CHPS database to cover all communities in the Greater Accra region to strengthen healthcare delivery,” he said.
Mr Shizume said the JICA Ghana office would through its projects continue to provide technical support to the GHS.
Mr Akihisa Katsumura, Representative of Embassy of Japan, said the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with funding from the Government of Japan, was implementing a CHPS for life project aimed at addressing the demand and supply for health services in communities.
The project, he said, would focus on making healthcare accessible to women, children, persons living with HIV, Non-Communicable Diseases, and slum dwellers for the uptake of health services amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
The CHPS concept is a key strategy developed to bring health service close to clients in underserved, deprived or vulnerable communities.
The concept was premised on the involvement of individuals and households in the planning and delivering healthcare with communities as partners for improved health outcomes.
Source: Ghana News Agency
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