As we've said, it's important for the community health worker to keep
the community informed about the availability of commodities.
Again, figuring out the distribution system for the ivermectin,
as we said before, the community has decided someone to do house to house,
someone to have a central location.
Some do a combination.
They do a central location and
they do follow-up house to house people who were not there.
The commodities for malaria,
you could certainly go house to house to distribute nets.
But oftentimes, it's probably more appropriate for
people to come to the house of the community health worker when the child or
any other family member needs malaria treatment.
Often, home visits are important because then you discover their challenges.
So the community needs to work out how they want to access and
what is the most acceptable way for doing that.
We can't overstress the partnership that should
develop between the health center and the communities
when we're doing community case management, community prevention programs.
The same people who train the community health workers then become supervisors.
Ideally, they should visit the village.
Work together with the village health worker.
In the picture here, one of the supervisors is showing the village health
worker about checking for anemia in a child.
And then the village health worker will practice that.
Just as a refresher, the supervisor can check what medicines are in the drug kit,
how it's being kept.
The village health workers can share their concerns with the supervisor.
The supervisor meet with village leaders to see if there are any concerns.
We've had situations, for example, where the village leaders will complain,
the person to we selected is not very bright.
He doesn't seem to manage the things correctly.
And then when the supervisor say, okay, you selected him.
Why did you select him?
We felt sorry for him because he had gone off to the city to find work and
he couldn't.
And he came back home and just started farming.
But he's been very good at anything, and so we thought we would help him.
And then the supervisor asks,
well, how is that helping you [LAUGH] if he doesn't do the job well?
And then they realize they probably need to select someone else.
Another aspect of supervision is when the supervisor arrived in one village and
they said, our neighboring villages, they're getting these medicines but
our village health workers always complain that the medicines are out of stock and
we don't understand.
So the supervisor monitored what was happening and found out that those village
health workers were taking the medicines and selling them in the market.
So once the villagers learned about this, they fined the two
community health workers a goat to be eaten by the community.
And then they quote, unquote fired them and select a new.
So the importance of visits to supervise and
find out what's happening to the medicines,
what's the community attitudes are, what support is being given is very important.
And as we said, when we come together for our monthly meetings,
this is a good time not only for supervision by the health worker but
also peer supervision and peer problem solving.
Where the village health workers, together, can discuss what their needs and
problems are.