Community and mental health, social support, HIV, sexual and gender-based violence among key program Posted on Mar 31, 2022 Malawi has been in the news for powerful cyclones and other extreme weather that has battered homes, clinics, communities, and farmland. But the country is also recognized for other reasons, including Read more…
In The Lancet Global Health: Community health workers key to contact tracing Posted on May 4, 2021 In much of the world, contact tracers pick up the phone. But in places like Chiapas, Mexico, they knock on doors. That’s because phone and internet service are hard to come by in Mexico’s Read more…
PIH starts using new tool to expand access to testing, care Posted April 5, 2021 Just weeks ago, Erick Alarcón spent his days racing motorcycles, working in construction and providing for his family. But a diagnosis of tuberculosis brought everything to a standstill. “I already knew that something was wrong,” Read more…
PIH provides medical care, accompaniment to the elderly, the chronically ill Posted on February 17, 2021 Every day, Delia Zevallos picks up the phone and dials the same number. After a few rings, a voice answers—it’s her patient, an elderly man who lives alone in Carabayllo, an impoverished community 20 Read more…
Community health workers provide support, accompaniment for mothers in rural Mexico Posted on January 26, 2021 On any given day, Vilga Vázquez cooks, cleans the house, and runs her family’s grocery store. But her to-do list doesn’t end there. The 36-year-old has another job: caring for new and expectant mothers Read more…
Community health workers, social mobilizers key to education, referrals, and care in pandemic Community health workers (CHWs) prove to be the backbone of any health system, providing a link between households and health facilities. As Partners In Health (PIH) learned during the Ebola epidemic in West Africa from 2014 to Read more…
Leini Escalante provides compassionate care in her community amid pandemic Each day from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Leini Escalante works at a community clinic in rural Chiapas, Mexico, helping clinicians care for COVID-19 patients. In the middle of the day, she returns home to feed her two children. Then, Read more…
In mid-March, when Dr. Chiyembekezo Kachimanga stood in front of a hushed crowd of Partners In Health staff members and began talking about COVID-19. The disease had not yet made its way to Sierra Leone–but he knew it soon would, and time was short. “It’s a very difficult pandemic; countries Read more…
On a 100-degree day in October—the peak of dry season in Neno District, Malawi—Eliza Kazembe sat in the shade alongside her family’s home and said it felt like she’d been pregnant forever. “She’s akuyembekezera kuchira,” Anga Sawasawa said, explaining that the Chichewa phrase translates to “waiting for delivery.” Kazembe, 17, Read more…
Idah Mtunduwatha has worked as a community health worker (CHW) with PIH in Neno District, Malawi, since 2017. A mother of one, Idah’s responsibilities include providing health education and screening services to her assigned households, visiting patients with non-communicable diseases and HIV to ensure they are taking their medicines, and Read more…