Organising community health workers for emergencies
In times of emergencies, initial care is essence. Community Health Workers (CHW) provide this initial lifesaving and other essential health care to the communities affected. There is a dire need of organsing them with proper training, education and hygiene in disaster prone Bangladesh. If they are well trained to provide proper first aid, selecting and prioritising injured persons who need immediate care, assisting in search and rescue operations and providing emergency relief items, they can save thousand of lives during the initial golden hours after calamities occur. World Health Organisation (WHO) has underscored the utmost importance to equip, train and prepare community health workers worldwide to provide critical care for millions of people affected by natural disasters, war and other crises, and the health risks that follow. Community health workers are often the glue that holds the local frontier heath care system together. They help ensure equity in health at grassroots levels — urban and remote — and contribute to country efforts to ensure health care for all, particularly the poor, under-served and underprivileged. These workers are trained in hygiene, first aid, immunisation and other essential primary health care services and form the backbone of any emergency health response. As key members of the community, grassroots health workers are well placed to assess risks to their own towns and villages. They can identify vulnerable groups, such as children, women and the elderly, detect trends in disease patterns and provide early warning for rapid response to emergencies. Training local health workers to be able to identify hazards to communities, help make towns and villages less vulnerable and increase the capacity of people to respond to emergencies is a powerful way to protect public health. The work of community health workers in acute crises helps devastated health systems recover and be more resilient in the future. The skills and knowledge of such workers provides the base on which local health services have been built back better in many countries. Community health workers should be viewed as having contributed to more effective delivery of health-related services. In addition to first line responder to emergencies, they are very effective in gaining access to hard-to-reach populations. They help people educating personal hygiene, drinking safe water and sanitation. Disease outbreak during emergencies like diarrhoea, cholera, gastroenterities occur due to drinking unsafe water and lack of knowledge on sanitation. They help in containing these diseases. As a nation vulnerable to climate change and in our poor healthcare setting, organising and preparing community health worker is essential and cost-effective way to save millions of lives from natural disaster, road traffic accidents (RTA) and other casualties. But the issue is often overlooked and less pronounced. Experts urged that the health policy makers and authority concerned should prioritise the issue with due importance. Source: World Health Organisation
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