The Youth Employment Agency (YEA) has announced that it has begun processes to recruit three thousand (3000) Ghanaian youth onto its restructured Community Health Workers (CHWs) module in the Health Sector as part of creating more jobs and most importantlyto help mitigate the impact of COVID-19 in the rural communities.
The announcement was made at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding M.O.U) between Agency and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in Accra on Thursday 5th August 2021 to kick start the process.
The CHWs module has been modified with an enhanced role of public education, community outreach programmes and information dissemination apart from providing ancillary services in the health centres, following the outbreak of the deadly COVID-19 virus pandemic.
Thus, the essence of the roll-out is for employment creation for the youth as well as mitigation drive to contain the spread of the COVID virus in the communities of the country.
In a brief remark at the signing ceremony, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of YEA in charge of Operations, Alhaji Ibrahim Bashiru, who represented the Chief Executive Officer Lawyer Justin Kodua Frimpong, traced the history of the inception of the CHWs module among the other traditional modules from 2006 during former President Kuffour’s.
Alhaji Ibrahim Bashiru acknowledged the impact the module made in the health delivery system and expressed delight that its rebirth could not have come at a more opportune time with the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus in the country.
He said the target of the module is the densely populated rural communities where a lot of education and outreach programmes were required because some rural folk thought the COVID was a myth and until they see it physically they would not accept its existence.
He called for a concerted effort to reach out to skeptics in the society for a change in their mind-set and believed it is apt for the Agency to join forces with the GHS as development partners to come up with this Agreement to contribute their quota to the challenges posed with the outbreak of the virus.
The Director General of the GHS, Dr Patrick Kuma Aboagye, acknowledged the important role the CHWs played as a link between the GHS and the Communities in terms of health care delivery and reiterated the need for public education to change the attitude of the people towards the COVID safety protocols.
He assured that the GHS would do its best to build the capacity of the CHWs to make it to the next level and possibly rope in those who would excel into the mainstream health delivery system.
The Deputy Chief Executive Officer signed on behalf of the YEA while the Director –General of the signed for the GHS. Among the dignitaries present were directors from the YEA and officials of the GHS.
By Sumaila Hafiz Kamara
0240995611/0200400166.
