Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa has cautioned 155 newly trained Community Health Extension Workers (CHEWs) in Mitooma District against treating patients or opening informal clinics, urging them to focus on health education, disease prevention and linking households to formal facilities.
Speaking on Monday at the workers’ pass-out ceremony at the district headquarters, Tayebwa told the graduates they are not clinicians and must not behave as if they were.
“You’re not a doctor; don’t start acting like doctors, don’t set up clinics. Don’t attempt to treat anyone. That is not your job,” he said.
He instead described their role as the government’s eyes and ears in communities: spotting health risks, educating households and referring people who need professional care. The ceremony was attended by Ministry of Health officials and district leaders.
The CHEWs are expected to take health promotion closer to homes in places where access to facilities remains difficult. Their work covers community sensitisation, disease surveillance, promotion of immunisation and antenatal care, identification of risks and referral for treatment.
Tayebwa said Mitooma’s setting makes that work particularly important. Parts of the district border forests and a national park, and malaria remains a major concern. He asked the workers to map communities with heavier disease burdens and shape their messages to local needs.
He also urged local leaders to give the CHEWs space at community gatherings, including burial ceremonies, rather than leaving those platforms entirely to politicians. The workers, he said, should speak about lifestyle-related illness, including the dangers of excessive alcohol use, and encourage women to attend routine antenatal care.
On equipment, he warned them to protect bicycles and other items supplied by government. The items, he said, are tools of work, not personal gifts.
“Guard the properties that you have been given; they are not gifts. They are work equipment. For you women, if your husband confiscates the bicycle, report immediately.”
Director General of Health Services Dr Charles Olaro said the deployment is part of a wider Ministry of Health push to shift the system toward prevention, rather than waiting until people fall ill. A large share of Uganda’s disease burden, he said, could be reduced through better information, healthier habits and earlier action at community level.
The programme’s success, Olaro added, should be judged by problems prevented in villages, not by the number of patients sent to facilities. CHEWs are expected to support immunisation, antenatal care, family planning, sanitation and the prevention of non-communicable diseases.
Mitooma Acting District Health Officer Julius Taremwa said the new workers should help close a long gap between households and services. The district recently recruited 101 health workers, including a surgeon, a gynaecologist and medical officers, yet staffing remains at about 22 percent. Some communities still lack facilities, and Mitooma General Hospital is undergoing further development.
“We still have communities that are not being reached. For example, Katenga Sub-county as a whole has no health facility, and Kiyanga Sub-county also faces gaps in access to health services,” he said.
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