Councils to support health guidelines implementation

Ministry of Health head of community health services Doreen Ali has asked district councils to support the implementation of community health guidelines and manuals.

She spoke on Monday in Salima during the dissemination of the guidelines and manuals to orient councils on the guidelines as well as map out its implementation strategies.

Ali said the guidelines are important because they will be used as a guiding tool for communities, district councils, partners and providers while providing community health services in their respective areas.

She said: “There are several guidelines such as the community health action group guidelines meant for volunteers that oversee the village health committees.

“There is also the defaulter tracing guidelines which will be used for tracking children or clients who are on treatment, but are not coming for it, among other things.”

Ali said the ministry expects district councils to help push the guidelines to the community level so that all implementing partners as well as communities are aware and able to utilise them.

According to her, the formulation of the guidelines follows identified gaps which revealed that there was no integration of health services in the communities as well as in implementation of such programmes.

Ntcheu district commissioner Francis Matewere said the dissemination of the guidelines to the councils has come at a right time when councils are implementing various programmes in a decentralised manner.

Dedza district director of health and social services Isaac Mbingwani said the documents will help improve health service delivery at community level as communities will now understand how to demand such services in their area.

He said there was need for the districts to disseminate the guidelines to different committees to make communities aware.