May 12, 2017 By Jariatu S. Bangura
Members of parliament yesterday ratified the long awaited Community Health Practitioners Act, 2017, having gone through the committee stage with some amendments for the regulations of Community Health Officers (CHOs).
The private member bill was championed by Hon. Mohamed Lamin Mansaray for the past two months.
He said there was over 1,132 peripheral health units in the country and were all manned by CHOs and Community Health Assistants, including other medical doctors in some extreme villages and headquarter towns.
He said the objective of the bill among other things, was to provide clear understanding on the concept of community health, provide clear understanding on the community health cadre, and the role of community health practitioners in the country.
He stated that the concept of community well-being was about the health of the whole population, prevention, and treatment of common diseases from which the community suffers.
He noted that CHOs would carry out community diagnosis, conduct baseline survey, collect baseline data and situation analysis, and find solutions to existing and emerging health problems.
However, Hon. Mansaray maintained that there were challenges of the lack of policies for community health service that will clearly explain the roles and responsibilities of CHOs at national and district levels, and that there have been uncoordinated movement of CHOs and Community Health Assistances within the country.
He stated that it was very important that parliament enacted the bill as it would help CHOs to regulate and oversee their activities across the country in protecting lives of citizens.
He noted that most of them do surgery and clinical service and that enacting that law would motivate them to do more work.
Chairman of Health Committee in parliament, Hon. Abdulai Sesay, said since 1983 when the paramedical school was established, those CHOs that graduated at that time still remain in grade 5.
He opined that the school was established to serve as career pathway for them, adding that they have been left alone to do things on their own as and when they like, which he said, was not good for the country.
“We are dealing with a situation that should have been dealt with long ago since the establishment of the medical school in order for CHOs to have a career partway ,” he said.
He stated that the bill would help strengthen the practice of CHOs and that there was need for them to be reconsidered because they are much closer to the medical doctors and are always willing to go into the villages.
Speaking to one of the CHOs after the enactment of the Act, Haja Kadiatu Jalloh, expressed gratitude to lawmakers for giving them the opportunity to perform their duties as practitioners as “For over 21 years, I have got my qualification as community health practitioner, but with the enactment of this Act, I can now proudly boast of being a practitioner. Today will be a memorable day for us all”, she said.
Chief Community Health Officer in the Ministry of Health, Abu Conteh, said over thirty years they have been in fear to carry out their duties as CHOs but with the enactment, parliament has reduced their burden and worries.
He urged government to speed up the process of establishing a board to address their issue.