About us
CHCD passes it’s funding through a Tanzanian registered Non Government Organization Medicine Education Africa (MEA). MEA employs six Tanzanians who operate and support our network of Village Health Workers (VHWs). This work falls into four key areas:
Clinical Supervision
Two trained nurses check how the drugs have been used as recorded by each VHW in their patient register book. They are in a position to be able to talk one to one with individual health workers in order to maintain standards of clinical operation.
Drug Kits
We have two people who are responsible for procuring all our medicines from local wholesale suppliers and repacking everything into individual kits as our needs and requirements demand. They also maintain an audit trail from point of purchase to prescription, as per the requirements of the Tanzanian Ministry of Health.
Training
Our senior nurse is in charge of training new health workers joining our project, as well as overseeing regular ‘re-training’ seminars for existing members of the network.
Administration
We maintain records of all the work done by every VHW in the network and chase up individuals who are late or have gone missing. Seminars need organizing to train new and existing VHWs, as well as paying the bills and generally keeping the wheels turning efficiently.
Our Network Of Health Workers
It has to be understood that the health workers are not considered health care professionals. However, they are respected members of their community who volunteer to operate the health post.
Armed with our kit of medicines they are in a position to diagnose and treat a limited number of conditions, as well as manage the kit of medicines according to a simple set of standards and practices.
We actively encourage communities to implement a system of voluntary contribution by the patients in order to generate some local income. This empowers the community to be responsible for buying day-to-day consumables and in most cases paying the health worker a small allowance.
Our supply schedule ensures that we have face-to-face contact with each health worker at least every 6 weeks. Most health workers undertake to travel from their village to our office to exchange their kits (typically a days round trip).
For villages in remote locations we load up our Landcruiser and head off to meet at a rural location more convenient for them.
