Over 6,000 community health volunteers in Nairobi will receive a monthly stipend starting next month.
City Hall has allocated Sh308 million towards the remuneration and National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) cover for the volunteers. At least 6,250 volunteer workers will receive Sh3,000 as a monthly stipend and Sh500 in health insurance.
This will see the monthly stipend increase from the current Sh1, 300 to Sh3, 000.
Sh100 million of the Sh308m will be used for the initial payment of the community health volunteers in the coming financial year starting Thursday.
Nairobi County Assembly Budget and Appropriations committee chairperson Mr Robert Mbatia said the programme was to be rolled out in 2019 but had to be withheld because of budget constraints.
Nairobi has a total of 6, 250 community health workers who work in more than 1, 000 health centres across all the 85 wards in the city.
They engage in tracing and referral of health-related cases to the nearest health facilities, conducting home visits to determine health situations, promoting appropriate home care for the sick with the support of health partners and mobilising community members to adopt health promotion practices, among others.
