Supervision is one of the critical elements common to high quality Community Health Worker (CHW) programs. In many health systems, health center-based providers are also charged with supervising CHWs in the community. In practice this is almost always an impossible task, as large workloads prohibit providers from being both in the health center seeing patients and in the field with CHWs. For this reason, dedicated supervision is necessary to ensure CHWs have sufficient support. CHW Supervisors provide ongoing training to CHWs and serve as an important link with the community. One of these critical CHW Supervisors is Israël Gnassimgbe.
Israël is a CHW Supervisor in the district of Bassar in northern Togo. In his position, he oversees 19 CHWs, ensuring that they are providing high-quality care to their patients. Israël spends his time acting as a link between the health center staff and the CHWs, providing training for CHWs, and filling in when a CHW is unable to make it to work. Israël also works closely with the local community, including village chiefs. Israël is an advocate for health for all, and his role is critical to achieving that mission.
In 2013, Israël received his bachelor’s degree in Health Science with a specialization in Nursing and Obstetrics. He started his career at the National Service of Occupational Medicine where he worked for one year as head of a health care unit in occupational health and safety. Following this position, Israël took a position as a head nurse at a healthcare organization based in Benin. In this role, he worked with clinics and in communities to provide quality primary care to under-resourced populations. Israël’s passion to bring primary care to the most remote communities led him to his current position at Integrate Health in 2018. Israël started at Integrate Health as a CHW Supervisor in 2018, when the Integrated Primary Care Program was launched in the Bassar district.
For Israël, his work is more than just a job, it is a chance for him to lift up his colleagues by teaching them new skills.
“I like working with [CHWs] because I like playing the role of a coach to help people do something they couldn’t before.”
Through coaching CHWs, Israël has found a passion for creating change through their growth. He believes that everyone has the capacity to grow, and as a supervisor of 17 women CHWs his work helps to amplify their voices and shift the perceptions of what a woman can do. With Israël’s support since the launch of the Integrated Primary Care Program, the district of Bassar has seen incredible changes in healthcare delivery. Since July of 2018, when Integrate Health launched the Integrated Primary Care Program in Bassar, the percentage of women giving birth in a health facility has increased two-fold, an important indicator of quality that helps to ensure women have the resources necessary for a healthy birth.
Israël’s inspiration comes from saving children’s lives each day and ultimately, providing a lasting solution for health in his community. Israël demonstrates this commitment by going above and beyond for the CHWs that he supervises and for his patients. On one supervision visit with a CHW named Kataka, Kataka consulted an eight-month-old baby who seemed very pale. Kataka referred the patient to the hospital, but the family was hesitant to go because they worried about the cost. Israël helped explained to the family that the hospital fees would be covered and then personally accompanied the family to the hospital for care. Israël explains that he is motivated by his colleagues, who he says, “spare no effort to ensure the right to health for all.” His colleagues say the same about him.