Only 9000 HSA’s serve 17 million Malawians

It has been revealed that only 9000 health surveillance assistance are serving a population of 17 million in the country.

This has been disclosed during a media orientation workshop in Liwonde, Machinga district.

This is against the required ratio of 1 HSA to 1000 people therefore 8000 more HAS’s are required to improve delivery of health services.

Speaking during the same function Rose Kamera of Youth Net and Counselling YONECO said there is still a long way to go for Malawi to achieve delivery of quality health services.

“As per required standards a distance to a health facility should be a radius of about 8 to 10 kilometres with 6 nurses, 2 medical assistants and 2 environmental health officers catering for 20,000 people,” explained Kamera.

However, she said this is not the case on the ground as most people travel 30 to 35 kilometres to get to a nearest facility which has only 2 to 3 medical personnel especially in Nkhatabay and Machinga districts.

“An ambulance which is supposed to cater for 1 to 25000 people is catering for almost 3 to 4 health facilities,” cited Kamera.

The workshop has been organized by YONECO under every woman every child accountability project EWEC.

The project is being implemented in five districts of Dedza, Machinga, Zomba, Dowa and Nkhata bay in partnership with MEHN, UNICEF, and PACHI.

Every woman every child is a pilot project which begun in July last year and is expected to end in December this year