13/04/2011

Claudia Hammond reports from Ethiopia about the government's ambitious programme to improve the entire country's healthcare by training local women to do it.

Ethiopia's Health Extension Programme was started in 2003 and aims to deliver health services to the whole country. Eighty-five per cent of Ethiopia's population lives in rural areas. How do you get healthcare to people without using a single doctor?

So far the government has trained more than 30,000 women to give advice on immunisation, contraception, nutrition and childbirth at health posts all over the country. Claudia meets the health worker who explains what her job involves day to day.

How is the Health Extension Programme improving the health of the people and in what other countries has it worked?

Claudia is joined by studio guest Dr Manuel Dayrit – ex-Health Minister of the Philippines and now Director of the Human Resources for Health Department at the World Health Organisation - to discuss Ethiopia's innovative model for health and how community health workers can improve the health of a nation.