Ministry of Health Moves to Strengthen Grassroots Healthcare

Community health workers are the backbone of care in Belize’s most remote villages, making home visits, tracking children’s health, supporting patients, and even translating during clinics. Today, the Ministry of Health and Wellness launched its National Community Health Strategy to strengthen that frontline force through training, capacity building, and digital tools. Community health worker Vanecia Cho shared the daily realities on the ground, while Health Minister Kevin Bernard says the plan will better equip workers to serve their communities.

 

Vanecia Cho, Community Health Worker

“I would have scheduled home visits for the day for doing blood pressure, glucose checks, weight and height for babies. And then we also get our lists from the nurses, and we have to go. We have our targets for the children that are for stunting. So we would have to go and check them each month. I receive calls for example, I have – my baby has a fever. You need to come to the house, and I would have to leave what I am doing and then go to the person’s house. Or and then we have schedules for mobiles. We have to be with our nurses and our nutritionists to be able – some of our mothers who are not fully English-speaking person in case we have to do be there with them to translate what the nutritionist is saying or what the nurse is saying, so they can be able to understand exactly what they need to do with their baby.”

 

Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health

“It’s all about making sure that our community health workers have something that we could guide them with, at the same time, how we guide the improvement of health within the local communities and they play a very significant role. So it’s about giving them the impetus to be able to carry out their work effectively with the support of the Ministry of Health and Wellness. Guiding them with the necessary tools and skill set. There’s gonna be a lot of capacity building, training. As highlighted in the presentation, we’re trying to ensure that we bring some digital health transformation activities within the strategy as well.”

 

Vanecia Cho

“It is another one, another way for community health workers to be able to say, “Okay they’re looking after us. They’re prioritizing community health workers.”

 

Community health workers saw a major boost in pay last year. Their monthly stipend jumped from one hundred dollars to five hundred dollars in 2024, recognizing the critical role nearly three hundred workers play in delivering primary healthcare in rural and remote communities.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

Watch the full newscast here: