By Moses Nyirenda

Lilongwe, August 9, Mana: Lilongwe District Chief Preventive Health Officer, Paul Chunga has cautioned Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs) working in Lilongwe to avoid being absent from their duties and scale up efforts in promoting good health in the country. 

He made the remarks on Thursday in Lilongwe during an interface meeting with senior HSAs for Lilongwe, which was organized by Malawi Health Equity Network (MHEN).

Chunga said in some areas HSAs do not report for duties yet they are supposed to do so on daily basis.

“Most HSAs do not report for duties and some report just for two hours and off they go, yet we are supposed to work from 1^st January to 31^st December unless you are on leave.

“You find that many communities are not visited by most of these HSA for several reasons, others live very far away from their catchment area with their families and because of this they fail to sustain paying transport which leads to absenteeism,” Chunga said.

He added that the HSAs are supposed to work according to their work plan but most of them barely follow the plan.

He further cautioned the HSAs to avoid being absent for duties and upscale their efforts in promoting good health in the country saying they have a lot of work do which include; sanitation and water quality promotion as well providing health education in the communities.

Chunga applauded MEHN for constantly engaging HSAs on various health related issues such as vaccination of under-five children through its vaccination project, which it is implementing in the country with financial support from Global Alliance for vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).

MEHN Assistant Project Officer, Tumpale Kalobo said as an organization they are committed to working with the HSAs in order for them to cordially work with Mother Care Groups (MCGs) in the vaccination of the under-five children and make sure that all children are vaccinated against diseases such as Measles and polio.

MEHN is supporting the vaccination work of under-five children through MCGs, which scaled up vaccination efforts by among other things making door-to-door visits to encourage mothers to take their children to the clinics for vaccination.