Meet CHW Phionah Ahumuza
Phionah Ahumuza is a 23 year old mother and wife living in the Ruhiira Parish, Uganda. She is a senior Community Health Woker with 140 house holds that have 150 children under five and currently five pregnant mothers. She was born in Ntungamo district and got married in Isingiro, Ruhiira. Phionah has been a CHW since 2010, which means that she has been doing this work since she was 20 years old.
We were able to meet up with Phiona at a regular house visit to update her records for an Under Five child. This CHW program in Uganda like many CHWs is focused on this population of children because they are the most at risk to die from preventable and curable diseases. She monitors the child’s nutrition, growth and weight. She will consult with the mother on the general make up of the household such as bed net use, sanitation, hand washing stations, nutritional choice and so much more. By understanding the make up of the house, Phionah will be best able to anticipate and prevent illness.
Conducting growth monitoring
During a house hold visit Phiona updates her registers
We were able to ask a couple of questions and get to know more about Phiona:
Why did you become a community health worker?
I wanted to acquire skills in health promotion and treatment of common diseases.
What is the best part of your job?
Assessing and treating sick children and health education.
What is the hardest part of your job?
Walking house to house while doing house hold visits can get a little overwhelming especially when the weather is harsh
Phiona at job two helping in her husband’s shop
What did you do this week?
- I attended the weekly CHW meeting at the Health facility
- Visited 15 house holds
- Attended to the shop and did domestic work
What were the cases you worked on?
- Growth monitoring a 7 year old child
- Routine counseling messaging on nutrition, sanitation and bed net usage in all the house holds I visited
- Conducted rapid diagnostic test for malaria on one child, the test was negative and I referred the baby on the nearby health facility
- Treated one child for simple pneumonia
- Treated one child for diarrhea
Phiona doing dishes with her daughter
What else did you have to do other than community health worker tasks?
Routine domestic chores and working in my husband’s shop.
Do you go on vacation or ever get to take a break?
No. I am always available to community members.
What is your biggest dream for your people/community specifically looking at health?
I would want to see continuity of quality health care services easily accessible and available to our community members.
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