In a country where about 45 percent of the 28 million people live in rural communities miles from health clinics, with no reliable form of transportation, the Ghanaian government began deploying thousands of community health workers in 2016 to bridge the gap in access to health services. Trained in basic health care, the CHWs assist in emergencies and also — as important — take steps to prevent those emergencies from happening.
“We believe,” said Nathaniel Ebo Nsarko, who heads Ghana’s chapter of the One Million Community Health Workers Campaign, which is helping coordinate the deployment, that “this is the answer to universal health."
