The Role of Community Health Workers

As the COVID-19 disease famously ravaged the country and the world in general, the efficiency of CHWs in the delivery of health services has become unrivaled. Many of these professionals work at the community level; they have been putting their service on the frontline in terms of service provision, community outreach and advocacy as well as supporting strained health facilities dealing with the effects of the disaster. With the world going through the pandemic and fürther more preparing for the next one, it is impossible to overestimate the role of community health workers. What they do is not only aboutreaction to a health crisis; it is a constant commitment towards building up strength and everything positive in societies globally.

Community Health Workers (CHWs), by far, are one of the foundations of public health though as observed during this COVID-19 outbreak. For this reason, CHWs have exhibited unprecedented dedicated efforts in enhancing the health systems in support of often-quarantined communities, besides containing the dispersion of epidemic diseases. The authors focus on investigating the importance of CHWs in the response to pandemics and how they, in fact, have become the life saviors and source of information and protection for communities.

The Critical Role of Community Health Workers During the Pandemic

With their course established as healthcare’s frontline soldiers, Community Health Workers (CHWs) emerged as the vital force connecting healthcare to the people as the world faced COVID-19. The role has been imperative in not only containing the virus, but also in delivering other vital health services to people who may be hard to reach.

The role of Community Health Workers (CHWs) in combating COVID-19 is unthinkable, CHWs are the bridge linking the communities to health care settings. They have been very instrumental not only in the fight against the disease but also in facilitating delivery of other essential healthcare services to those who would otherwise hardly access them due to culturally, geographically or physically barriers.

Challenges Faced by Community Health Workers

Much as CHWs have been invaluable in managing this pandemic, they too have not had it easy. Some of the major obstacles include:

Limited Resources and Support

Inadequate Training
- Some of the CHWs are off알rently training with low levels of technical health education and skills, which compromises the complex health interventions services that they offer.
- Continuing education is very important so that CHWs meet the challenges of new emerging diseases and offer appropriate information and services.
Aberystwyth University has been severely affect by shortages in Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
- Pandemic revealed that CHWs were scantily equipping with necessary personal protective wear when discharging their responsibilities hence exposing them to the virus.
Low Compensation
- In many regions, CHWs are paying relatively low wages for the role they play and the work they do.
- There has been a call for an improvement or the compensation and recognition for these CHWs.
High Workload and Stress
- The pandemic create a high demanding for services where CHWs were expect to undergo more work and provide better, what ends up happening is that they can burn out.

Public health losing ground: Addressing Challenges for the Future

Despite the outlined challenges there are some strategies for the improvement of the CHWs or ways of strengthening this essential human resource in preventive health, to enable them to better respond to future health crises.

Training Information and Education
- Expanding coverage of drive training and awareness on response to emergencies, health education, and mental health will enable CHWs for better response action in future.
- Arming them with modern tools and resource in health care delivery will improve the ability of the center to deliver on its mandate.
Strengthening Support Systems
- Though maintaining and improving the health and caring for the mental health of the CHWs themselves who perhaps go ‘overboard’ helping others is an important concern.
- Government and organizations can support people in terms of supplies, in delivering personal protective wears and necessary health products.
Understanding and Rewarding Their Work
- Reasonable remuneration, incentives and a structure recognition can help to keep CHWs engaged all the time.
- Promoting the policy changes to protect CHWs as front line workers will guarantee sustainable practice in their services.

The Way Forward: Strengthening the Role of Community Health Workers

The COVID-19 pandemic response provides a critical illustration of the centrality of CHWs as lifesaving agents and critical to interruption of epidemic transmission and building resilient communities. Their hard work and dedication have proved the need for community-based health-care in managing emergency health issues and keeping the disadvantaged groups out of reach.

A look into the future of global health reveals that more needs to be done in terms of preparation especially for the much needed and appropriate utilization of community health workers. There is an opportunity to build a better, stronger and far more effective and resilient healthcare system that can be tailored to empower local people by learning from the mistakes made during the pandemic.

Conclusion

That is why community health workers are rightly called the health heroes of the present day. They are important in delivering services that make access to basic public health needs achievable especially during a pandemic . However, their success depends on frequencies of investments, support, and recognition.

The need for community health workers must be sustained to be increased in future, more effort and support must be enhanced towards the growth of CHWs. Increasing their authority in healthcare collaborations, guaranteeing appropriate education, and offering the means and legal safe guards will enable them to go on doing the priceless job.