The second paper in the series is 'Cost attributed to the support of community based programmes.'
Why is it important?
A strong primary health care system for Myanmar requires consideration of a strengthened community based health worker network.
At the present time, community health workers are supported by the Ministry of Health and a variety of donors across the country, through different mechanisms and to undertake a range of activities. The previous paper in this ‘Knowledge Series’ (Examining the evidence base for community-based health programmes and cadres within the health system) outlined options and processes to optimize, harmonize and institutionalize a community based health care model for Myanmar using the experiences and lessons learned from 3MDG supported work.
This paper contains preliminary work around what it would cost for community based health care provision to cover the country.
What is it about?
This paper draws from work supported by 3MDG Fund across almost ten percent of the country where the Fund supports township wide activities to improve maternal, newborn and child health, and community based health care.
It draws on financial information for both programme implementation and management costs to model costs for national scale up. This preliminary costing allows better understanding of the overall cost - which is not insignificant - but would provide significant benefits at a relatively small per capita cost. With an additional investment of less than a dollar per person per year, community based health care can support interventions such as early treatment for childhood fever, including non-severe pneumonia and malaria, prevention of deaths from dehydration, newborn care and knowing when to refer at the immediate community level.
This paper highlights the fact that this type of support is potentially affordable for the country, and would provide access to care for the most common health issues at a community level. This could have a significant impact on mortality rates and also help reduce the social and financial burden of health care.
What are the next steps?
The preceding policy paper review (Examining the evidence base for community-based health programmes and cadres within the health system) alongside this costing paper provides important information, which is now in the public domain, and can inform the new governments’ policy and strategy formulation as well as development partner investments. Information contained in the paper could form the basis of a dialogue between Ministry of Health and development partners, allowing for informed decision making and weighing the benefits and gains to the country against the costs.
