Seventy people from Enga Province were trained to be village health workers. They recently graduated with certificates of Village Health Volunteers, a new concept to improve health education at the village level. The project is fully-funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency or JICA.
The 70 village health workers had undergone a 6 months training to help improve the overall health service delivery in Enga Province. The training is aimed at creating materials for health education, which will improve mobile clinic services.
Enga Provincial Health Authority recently received six new fully-kitted ambulances from the Japanese Embassy, which they plan to use for more mobile clinic to bring health care services to the rural population.
“We will extend our mobile clinic service so our rural populations do not miss out on health services such as vaccines, immunisation, health awareness’ and such,” stated Mr Aaron Luia, CEO of Enga Provincial Health Authority.
Enga Province is the first to roll out JICA’s Hamamas project, which is aimed at making villages healthy for mothers and women in the seven Highlands provinces. Similar training will be given to locals in the other Highlands provinces to help reduce the high maternal mortality and infant death rates.
The village health volunteers will provide health education as well as to step in as community health workers and assist village births if there are no nearby clinics or hospitals.
Japanese Ambassador to PNG, His Excellency, Satoshi Nakajima stated that, “…the major components of the project are training for the village health volunteers and creating materials for health education, which are aimed at improving mobile clinic service. I am pleased to know that 158 village health workers have successfully completed the training program to receive certificates so far, including today’s 70. We are very proud of their achievement!”
His Excellency Nakajima told the people of Enga Province that Japan will continue to support PNG to improve health service delivery.
By Vasinatta Yama – EMTV News, Mt Hagen
