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    • News
    • Produced in partnership: Healthy Access

    Kenya is rolling out UHC — with a little help

    As Kenya rolls-out its universal health coverage scheme, organizations and community health volunteers play a key role in helping the country achieve its goals. From Makueni county, Devex investigates.

    By Sara Jerving // 17 September 2019
    Community health volunteer Gianaphina Mwende Nguta visits cleft lip patient Brighton Mueni at his home. Photo by: Will Swanson

    MAKUENI COUNTY, Kenya — Gianaphina Mwende Nguta spends many of her days riding her motorbike around her village, checking in on the health of her neighbors. As a community health volunteer, she provides them with tips on nutrition and hygiene, refers them to the clinic or hospital, and gathers data, which she sends to the county government.

    Healthy Access: Hear directly from the health workers, NGOs, and patients in this multimedia series on how countries are moving forward on UHC.

    ► In the Philippines, the last-mile challenges to UHC

    ► A sound solution to health care delivery in Rwanda

    ► Delivering health in conflict: A different approach in Afghanistan

    “I take my motorbike and I just go around my households educating them,” Nguta said. She is responsible for 20 families.

    Nguta also helps identify and refer patients for treatment of cleft palate since being trained in 2017 by Smile Train, a nonprofit organization that works with local medical professionals by providing training, funding, and resources to provide free cleft surgery and cleft care to children globally.

    In hospitals that don’t have the capacity to perform the surgeries, the organization works to train and empower local medical professionals, often training and engaging community health volunteers to identify patients who need surgery. In-country, skilled surgeons perform the operations, while also training the local government health workers who will eventually take over this role.

    Continue reading the full feature story on how Kenya is rolling out UHC — with a little help.

    For a closer look at the innovative solutions designed to push for progress on universal health coverage around the globe, visit the Healthy Access series.

    • Global Health
    • Social/Inclusive Development
    • Kenya
    Printing articles to share with others is a breach of our terms and conditions and copyright policy. Please use the sharing options on the left side of the article. Devex Pro members may share up to 10 articles per month using the Pro share tool ( ).

    About the author

    • Sara Jerving

      Sara Jervingsarajerving

      Sara Jerving is a Senior Reporter at Devex, where she covers global health. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, VICE News, and Bloomberg News among others. Sara holds a master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where she was a Lorana Sullivan fellow. She was a finalist for One World Media's Digital Media Award in 2021; a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists in 2018; and she was part of a VICE News Tonight on HBO team that received an Emmy nomination in 2018. She received the Philip Greer Memorial Award from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2014.

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