World Bicycle Relief on Wednesday handed over 140 bicycles worth 30 million Kwacha to the Ministry of Health for use by Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs) who work in hard-to-reach areas.
Speaking after the donation, Minister of Health Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda said the donation has come at the right time when the country is carrying out vaccination campaigns and the bicycles will play a big part in the service delivery of community health workers.
“This donation is important to us because it is meant to support service delivery especially at a community level to our HSAs. You are aware that as a Ministry we are pushing so many programs especially issues like vaccination. As we are talking now, we are going to start third round of polio vaccine but also on top of that we are still conducting Covid vaccination and also the cholera vaccination.
“I can say in general we are really strengthening community health service delivery because we know that is where the need is. The people we use especially for these interventions mainly are Health Surveillance Assistants and you know some areas are hard to reach areas and they have to walk to such areas because we do not have enough ambulances. So, these bicycles will help them a lot in terms of transport,” said Chiponda.
In his remarks, World Relief Country Director Anthony Kinnard said as an organisation they have seen a huge need for healthcare service improvement especially in terms of mobility access and they thought it was a right time to make the donations to the HSAs.
According to Kinnard, this year they plan to donate close to 8,000 bicycles in Zomba and Kasungu.
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