By Ireen Kayira, Contributor

Malawi government through the Ministry of Health (MOH) says plans are underway to roll out a one year long training program for Health Surveillance Assistance (HSA) in the country.

This was disclosed during a capacity building workshop for Journalists, Health Surveillance Assistants and Community members so that they can connect for effective collaboration in bringing Primary Health Care (PHC) issues to light.

Ministry’s Deputy Director for Preventive Health Services Responsible for Community Health I, Doreen Namagagula Ali, said the HSA training programme was only for 12 weeks, but now has been extended with an extra year.

“The HSAs will be given university certificates and these will be the ones that have already been in service and it is going to act like an upgrading course, and all the training institutions will be involved to train these HSAs.

“We are mindful that we have about eleven thousand HSAs already on the ground, so to cover all of them, needs a lot of resources and good scheduling so that they should also be doing their work in the community as they are upgrading,” Ali said.

She also indicated that the training is Modula and not a full time job like the way they normally do. They will go for two weeks training, and go back to their communities to implement whatever they have learnt.

“So far we are still looking for resources for the training, and we are also planning on how we go about the training,” she said.

She further said there are a lot of partners that are interested to help in implementing the programme, and as the ministry, they are excited that this is going to happen because HSAs are doing a lot of work in the communities.

“They have a lot of work and we find that if they upgrade with the one year course they will be able to manage the work that they are doing,” she said.

She said, in addition, that they are also recruiting additional HSAs because they want every HSA to manage a population of 100 people as per our recommendation.

On his part, Communication and Advocacy Officer for White Ribbon Alliance, Newton Kalua, said journalists form an integral part in bringing to light various issues concerning health, and believes their interaction with HSAs, who are the ones on the ground delivering PHC in the communities, will help change the atmosphere in regard to improvement of PHC.

“One of the issues WRA  advocates for is quality PHC and we are glad that the government is taking interest in making sure that the community receives the best PHC by taking an initiative to train those that are in the fore-front when it comes to delivering this PHC,” said Kalua.

WRA Malawi supported the Ministry of Health on the training with funding from Primary Health care Performance Initiative (PHCPI), under the theme media – the magic bullet in Primary Health Care advocacy and financing towards achieving Universal Health Coverage in Malawi.

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