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R16m clinic opens in Slovoville
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Johannesburg – The opening of a new R16-million clinic in Slovoville, near Dobsonville in Soweto, will mark an end to the days when residents used to travel for up to 10km to access health care.

Joburg Mayor Parks Tau unveiled the clinic on Tuesday morning, with just over 2 000 people in attendance.

Mayor Tau said the construction of the clinic offered a wide variety of services that will not only give the community primary health care, but that the facility would meet standards that will make it possible for the National Health Insurance (NHI) to be rolled-out.

“It is important today that we should acknowledge and congratulate the Department of Health within the city... for initiating and implementing a project that will make us proud today.

“The clinic is also a facility to meet the standard of NHI. While the scheme is being rolled-out in other areas, we believe we should be able to build a clinic that meets those standards that will make it possible for NHI to be rolled out in the area,” he said.

The NHI is a financing system that will provide all South Africans with essential healthcare, regardless of their employment status. NHI compliant health facilities have to meet stringent standards, including cleanliness, safety and security of patients.

The Slovoville Clinic offers a wide variety of services, including reproductive health services, maternal (antenatal and postnatal) health services, women health services, adolescence and youth friendly services, child health services (including immunisation), HIV/Aids and sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis (HAST), management of acute illness, management of chronic conditions and health promotion and emergencies.

The clinic has five consultation wards for chronic diseases, Mayor Tau said, adding that the city had forged partnerships with private clinicians [doctors from private clinics] to come and work with the clinic.

“We have agreed that Slovoville will be a pilot area for us to do a health profile of the community.

“We will be visiting homes, and people will be visiting the clinic. We will then come back in a year and we will measure how the health profile of the community has improved,” the Mayor said.

The opening of the clinic was also attended by First Lady Bongi Ngema-Zuma, who in 2010 started a foundation that advocates for health and non-communicable diseases, with a special focus on diabetes, education and rural development.

“I stand here representing the Bongi Ngema Foundation. I grew up in a family that is affected by diabetes. My mother lived with diabetes for three decades. During her time, there were no clinics like this one that cares and treats diabetic patients.

“I commend you [Mayor Tau] for the wonderful work done, and indeed this is a good story to tell and I am going home to tell everyone,” she said.

Ngema-Zuma, who has visited the area while the clinic served the community from a mobile container, also commended the nurses for having persevered, despite working in an under-resourced situation.

The construction of the new brick and mortar clinic, which is amongst the first to be built with a back-up generator, started in 2013.

It has 18 consultation rooms, emergency room, drug store room, store for stock and linen room, counselling room and waiting area with an open reception.

The Slovoville Clinic, Mayor Tau said, will go a long way in providing comprehensive reproductive and antenatal services to patients.

The clinic will serve a population of 8 000 in a remote area that consists of RDP houses, mining complex and a mining hostel.

The area is situated in the far south of Soweto, and was named after Joe Slovo – a struggle stalwart who went on to become the first Minister of Housing of the new democratic South Africa. – SAnews.gov.za
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