She’s a nurse and a neighbor, leaving no one behind

Nurse Jalia Rwinza plays an essential role in her community, leading the way to health for all in Tanzania

At 28 years old, Jalia Rwinza is the head nurse at a small dispensary in the Mara Region of Tanzania. She and her small team work together to make sure every person who visits—ranging from expectant mothers, children, and the elderly—receives quality primary health care. But she’s not only a health worker, she’s a neighbor, living a few hundred feet from the facility and from the clients she serves every day.

Today, she’s at her health facility and out in the community meeting with some of her neighbors, including two women who have questions about family planning, a family at a nearby farm who rely on Jalia for routine care, and a new mother whose baby needs a check-up.

These are her neighbors and this is the life-saving care she’s providing them.

Nurses like Jalia who live and work in their communities are the health workers who can help us achieve Universal Health Coverage. With a strong health system to back her up, Jalia strives to ensure equitable access to essential health services for everyone in her community, making sure that their health and well-being are not a privilege for a few but a right for all.

That means providing a wide range of care tailored to the individual needs of each client she sees, including maternal and newborn health services, family planning, HIV testing, vaccinations and tuberculosis screening.

“I live in the village and am very friendly, which makes it easier for clients to speak out and be more open when they are sharing information about their health,” she says. “I can tell the community really enjoys me serving them. Sometimes they will even come to my home looking for me to attend to their health needs.”

Client relationships are important to Jalia, and she makes sure clients feel respected and heard during their visits with health workers.

“I make sure my team is adhering to ethics and that clients are receiving quality services from everyone,” she says.

When two women arrive at her health facility in the morning with questions about family planning, she attends to both. One woman is pregnant and would like to explore postpartum family planning once she gives birth.