| Summary: | Dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the
Master of Technology: Public Management, Durban University of Technology, 2012. === Access to medical care remains a challenge worldwide. It is particularly
severe in developing countries and it is estimated that one million more health
care workers are needed in Africa to meet the health related Millennium
Development Goals. Though many countries have made significant strides in
improving health service delivery by increasing their spending on health care,
many health systems remain weak. The situation is no different in South
Africa.
Community health workers (CHW’s) are thought to be an answer to improving
health care delivery. They can be trained to do specialized tasks, such as
providing sexually transmitted disease counselling, directly observed therapy
and act as birth attendants. Others work on specific programmes performing
limited medical evaluations and treatment. With proper training, monitoring,
supervision and support, CHW’s have shown to be able to achieve outcomes
in terms of health care service delivery.
The researcher undertook this study to investigate the perceptions of CHW’s
on the training services offered by Masikhulisane (MK). A case study of
Inanda, Ntuzuma and KwaMashu (INK) used a mix method approach to
determine the perceptions of community health workers on the training
services offered by Masikhulisane. The researcher distributed questionnaires
to six groups of CHW’s in the INK area at different venues.
The findings of the study are useful in making evidence-based improvements
in the MK education programme that targets various sectors, including
CHW’s. From the findings of this study, it was concluded that CHW’s can
make a valuable contribution to improved access and coverage of
communities with basic health services.
It is recommended that the Masikhulisane training programme should be
accredited, the Masikhulisane sectoral approach should be broadened to
reach more sectors not reached before and the training content should be
revisited to ensure acceptability and appropriateness for targeted sectors.
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