MPs want VHTs to be paid

HEALTH   

The Health Committee of Parliament is proposing that a small fee be given to members of the Village Health Team (VHTs) in order to motivate them.

The committee chairperson Michael Bukenya said the committee also proposed that the VHTs be trained on saving in order to invest for the future.

"We are borrowing a model from Rwanda where they pay some money to VHTs. They form a SACCO and every quota government gives them some money for them to develop and motivate themselves.

Earlier government had introduced the Community Extension Health Workers (CEHWS), whereby sh3bn was set aside to train them and recruit over 15,000 senior 6 leavers but because its challenges government abandoned the idea.

"As parliament, if we strengthen the VHT system we can go closer to achieve the target's government had set for CEHWS," Bukenya was speaking during a breakfast meeting for MPs on health committee which was organized by Wish2Action at Options at Golf Course Hotel.

In 2002, the government began implementing a national Community Health Workers (CHW) programme called the village health teams (VHTs), the VHTs have since been volunteering in all the districts. There are about 15,000 VHTs.

Meanwhile, civil society organizations have called for a need to increase the health budget. The Health Financing Advisor Wish2Action at Options, David Walakia while presenting priorities which government should consider in the health budget for this financial year, he told MPs that government should increase medicines and supplies urging that donor dependency are risky.

Walakira also asked the legislatures to speed up the process of the National Health Insurance Policy to ensure that the disadvantaged get an opportunity to improve their health.