Background
The Health Extension Program (HEP) is one of the most innovative community based health program launched by the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health to make health services accessible to rural communities by setting-out women Health Extension Workers (HEWs) in rural Health Posts. The HEWs are premised to provide basic, largely preventive, primary health services to rural villages and the program gives special attention to children and mothers. The objective of the study was to assess the contribution made by the Health Extension Workers in maternal and child health care service delivery in Dale district, southern Ethiopia.

Methods
Using a community based cross-sectional data; the study assessed the status of mother’s health service utilization and estimated the role of HEWs in maternal and child health care delivery. Mothers of reproductive age (15–49), having at least one under-five age child, were eligible for the study. The total sample size was 617 and systemic random sampling method was used to select the study subjects from each randomly selected kebeles (lower administrative units). Structured questionnaire was applied to collect data through interviewing of the selected mothers and the data were analysed using SPSS version 16 statistical software.