Physical Health Liberia Project #19463

Last Mile Health - Urgent Ebola Response Campaign

by Last Mile Health

Last Mile Health - Urgent Ebola Response Campaign

Project Report | Apr 4, 2016
Ensuring that Ebola is Gone but Not Forgotten

By Meggan Ireland | Grants Manager

As the restoration of health services across Liberia continues, Last Mile Health remains committed to improving access to essential, quality healthcare for children and adults living in the most remote parts of the country. In Rivercess County, a total of 226 Community Health Workers (CHWs) have been recruited and trained over the last three months, expanding the provision of primary health care to almost 250 remote communities. They join 57 existing CHWs in Grand Gedeh County in ensuring that people do not forget about the threat of Ebola and continue to take precautions and recognize the danger signs associated with this highly infectious disease.

Reflecting on the weeks before her training in Ebola response, CHW Musu from Nimba Junction explains just how crucial a role this was and continues to be.

According to Musu, it was common belief in her village that Ebola was not real. Furthermore, people were horrified by the prospect that they would be cremated rather than buried by their families in the traditional way if they should contact the virus. It was a harrowing time and people were afraid.

As a general Community Health Volunteer (gCHV) and member of the Community Health Committee (CHC), Musu was summoned to the nearby town of Bodowhea to attend Last Mile Health’s Ebola response training. There, she learnt about the clinical nature of the virus and was given the knowledge and tools she needed to prevent its spread and, if required, contain an outbreak in her community. This included relevant talking points for community education on the cause of Ebola and training on simple but effective infection prevention and control protocols.

Musu held a respected role as a gCHV, through which she was able to convince those in her community that the threat from Ebola is real. Just as she had learned, Musu went from house-to-house educating her neighbors on the importance of raising the alarm if anyone became seriously ill or showed signs of the virus. She showed them how to adapt plastic buckets to make hand-washing stations and succeeded in making this a routine practice.

Today, Musu is no longer a gCHV. Having been selected by her local CHC to undergo a rigorous interview, literacy testing and training process, Musu joined Last Mile Health’s first cohort of CHWs in Rivercess County last year. With the ongoing support that she receives, she has been able to reinforce her knowledge and skills, and continue to build the trust of her community. Even though Ebola has gone from Liberia, Musu’s neighbors know that it is real and are mindful that it could return at any time.

This is the message that new CHWs in Rivercess have been taught and are carrying to each and every remote village in the county. In addition to knowing how to identify, isolate, and refer Ebola cases, they are able to establish the foundation for continued service provision through community mapping and household registration. In this way, they are helping to fulfill Last Mile Health’s vision to see a health work for everyone, everywhere.

Links:

Last Mile Health Website

Permalink

Jan 6, 2016
Zacharino - Community Health Worker Leader

By Peter Harrison | Partnerships & Communications Associate

Zacharino (right) undertakes the riding test

Over the last three months, Last Mile Health has driven forward the expansion of a Community Health Worker (CHW) program in Rivercess County – a remote area of Liberia where the organization first started working in late 2014. In partnership with the government health authority, the County Health Team, last mile communities were protected from the Ebola crisis and are now gaining access to primary health services within their own communities through CHWs. The story below introduces you to someone who line manages a group of these CHWs, a dedicated and skillful member of our frontline team: Zacharino.

***

In early 2015, Zacharino Garsaynee starting working with Last Mile Health to provide Ebola response trainings to community leaders in Rivercess County, Southeast Liberia. Zacharino’s role in the training required dedication and flexibility, as the challenges of rapid implementation during a time of crisis were compounded by the lack of transport and communication infrastructure.

As Last Mile Health looked to transition from their response to Ebola to their pre-existing model of using professionalized CHW’s to provide high-quality primary health services in all of Rivercess County’s remote communities, Zacharino was encouraged to apply for the full-time role of Community Health Worker (CHW) Leader.

The role of CHW Leader was one that Zacharino was already enthusiastic about, as he had lived in Zwedru, where Last Mile Health was founded, for six months. There, he had learned about a CHW program in the remote district of Konobo, where CHW leaders would travel by motorbike and foot to conduct weekly supervision visits among 10-12 CHWs all serving villages that were several hours from the nearest health facility. Particularly due to poor road and weather conditions, the role would demand the same dedication and flexibility that had been required of Zacharino during his earlier Ebola response work.

Zacharino applied for the role, was hired, and is now fully immersed in his work as a CHW Leader, playing a crucial role in transforming health service provision in the remote county through expanding community-based services. The Community Health Workers he supervises together serve over 2,500 Liberian’s living at the last mile, protecting them from disease outbreaks, and providing preventative and curative services for malaria, diarrhea, and acute respiratory illnesses among children less than five years of age.

Zacharino’s enthusiasm remains undimmed: while Liberia’s long rainy season has made his work consistently more difficult and time-consuming, he has expressed that overall he enjoys it and feels it’s very impactful.

Zacharino takes notes during a training workshop

Links:

Last Mile Health

Permalink

Oct 8, 2015
Mother, Student, and Community Health Worker

By Peter Harrison | External Communications Coordinator

Meet Felecia Boe: Young mother, Outstanding Student, and Community Health Worker

As of September 3, 2015, Liberia was again declared Ebola free, after passing 42 days with no cases reported. As a result, Last Mile Health has shifted its Ebola response strategy into a long-term plan to train Community Health Workers (CHWs) to provide essential health services to their own communities. Ebola response services as part of the first training modules CHWs study, in recognition that CHWs are uniquely positioned to help prevent future outbreaks.

Last Mile Health recently completed recruitment and basic training of 120 CHWs in Rivercess County. The account below introduces you to one of the new CHWs Last Mile Health has recently trained, Felecia Boe.

In 2003, with Liberia’s second civil war coming to a close, Felecia Boe’s first pregnancy forced her to drop out of school in the third grade. After moving to live in the city with her uncle, she graduated high school and returned to her home village, Yolo, where she started a family and became a respected member of the 500-person community, which subsequently nominated her to become a Community Health Worker with Last Mile Health.

During her training, she was introduced to Last Mile Health’s vision to see a health worker for everyone, everywhere. She was trained to identify, isolate, and refer Ebola cases, and to establish the foundation for later service provision through community mapping and household registration. She will soon be trained in Integrated Community Case Management (iCCM) to treat malaria, diarrhea, and acute respiratory infections in children under five.

Felicia will fulfill our collective aim to establish access to health services in remote places like Yolo, more than six hours’ walk from the nearest health facility. Felicia is a core representative in the Government of Liberia and Last Mile Health’s plan to expand health care access to all 1.2 million Liberian’s living in remote communities.

The Last Mile Health team is grateful for your support, which enables us to be part of an effective Ebola response, and to realize our vision for every Liberian - especially those living in the most remote places - to have access to quality healthcare.

We believe that the most effective way to have widespread impact is through supporting the Liberian government, which shares the same vision. We’re interested to hear from you about other organizations who have combined implementing programs and supporting the local and national government, as an opportunity for possible learning exchanges.

Links:

http://www.lastmilehealth.org

Permalink

1 2 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.