Save Lives in the World's Most Remote Villages

Last Mile Health saves lives in the world’s most remote communities by partnering with governments to design, scale, strengthen, and sustain networks of community health workers who bring high-quality, lifesaving health care within reach of millions of rural people. In Liberia, maternal and under-five child mortality ratios are amongst the highest in the world and even more dire in remote areas, where hundreds of thousands of Liberians spend hours or even days travelling on motorbike, on foot, or by canoe through dense rainforest to reach basic health care.

Recognizing that health needs are greatest in the most remote communities, the Government of Liberia, in partnership with Last Mile Health, launched a groundbreaking initiative that will extend lifesaving health care to all 1.2 million people in Liberia living more than five kilometers from a clinic or hospital. Through the National Community Health Assistant (CHA) Program, Daniel is one of more than 3,000 community health workers in Liberia who are providing essential primary health services to their communities.

Moved by the all-too-common tragedies that occur simply because people live too far from a health facility, Daniel volunteered at his local clinic when he moved to remote Rivercess County, sharing health promotion messages with remote communities. “When I came here, there was nobody to carry people to the health center, to give pregnant women help, to send them to antenatal care visits, for vaccines – nobody! So I started going to [other] hard-to-reach areas. I forced myself, I sent myself all around the hard-to-reach areas.”

When the Government of Liberia launched the National CHA Program in 2016 – a program which would ensure that all workers like Daniel are trained, paid, supervised and equipped - the Ministry of Health visited Daniel’s community to seek nominations for community health workers. Daniel was chosen by his community, and through eight weeks of training and regular supervision, he has been empowered to provide reproductive, maternal, and neonatal health care services, as well as to diagnose and treat common childhood illnesses, monitor for disease outbreaks, and provide health education and referral for non-communicable diseases directly in his community. “Now, I’m very happy - no more maternal deaths or still births in my community, the children are getting vaccines. Everything is going on fine.”

Last Mile Health is committed to supporting community and frontline health workers like Daniel to bring primary health care within reach of everyone, everywhere. For the first time, children and families living in Daniel's community - in the heart of Liberia's dense rainforest and far from a health center - can now access health care right at their doorstep. Daniel's favorite part of his work is "being with my people. I don’t love sitting – I get to see friends and we can talk when I go around performing routine health visits. I can help my people.”

Founded on the belief that everyone has the right to access health care, no matter where they live, Last Mile Health works side-by-side with governments to develop and support networks of paid, professional community health workers who bring lifesaving healthcare services to the doorsteps of those who need them the most. In Liberia, this is being done via the National Community Health Assistant Program, a groundbreaking healthcare delivery initiative that will extend care to all 1.2 million Liberians living more than five kilometers from the nearest clinic or hospital by 2021.

At the frontline of this healthcare delivery system are clinical supervisors like Laurina and the community health workers they mentor. Growing up witness to immense suffering throughout Liberia’s 14-year civil war and driven further by the Government’s urgent need for health workers to rebuild the health system, Laurina knew it was her calling to help those most in need. “When there is war, you see a lot of things that burn your heart. You want to help but you don’t have the real knowledge. So for now, since I get the knowledge, I can go anywhere to give help.”

With her midwifery qualification and subsequent training through the National Community Health Assistant Program, Laurina is now one of more than 350 supervisors that mentor and oversee the 3,100 community health workers deployed throughout Liberia. On any given day, Laurina will travel hours on foot, motorbike, or boat to reach the remote communities supported by the program, helping community health workers who live in these communities to accurately diagnose common illnesses like diarrhea, malaria, pneumonia, and malnutrition. As a result of supervisors like Laurina, when people in remote communities fall sick with simple conditions, they can now be diagnosed and treated there and then, without having to travel hours or even wait days for transport to a health center. As she explains, “when I train my community health workers, I go, I mentor them, I talk to them, to make sure that children … will be able to live”.

Motivated by a belief that no one should die because they live too far from a health center, Laurina is driven to work in challenging, highly remote locations doing difficult work because of “the passion for our people”. She explains how “when you get to the bushes, in the villages, just kilometers away, you see the need. You see that people really need health care. You see children sick. So many things. So we need to leave the capital city and go to the people, they are our people.”

Until recently, many people considered it too challenging to provide health care to Liberia’s most remote communities. But with the commitment of health workers like Laurina and the vision of the Government of Liberia, Last Mile Health has demonstrated that health care for all, no matter where they live, is indeed possible. “As clinical supervisors, you go beyond your boundaries… You see the need of people in the rural areas – areas that they cannot get health care. That’s why the passion is there. You decide to go beyond, to extend health. That’s why I chose to be a clinical supervisor.”