Welcome to this week's blog! Today we are proud to publish the findings of the meeting that was held this time last week, to call for a clinic or a similar health service in our area:
Chintsa East Public Meeting
Health Access for Ward 6 residents
31stAugust 2013, Chintsa East Public School
 |
The table of speakers, from left: Thabang Maseko of TAC, Dr. Trudy Thomas, co-chair, Dr. Nozipho Jaxa, member of EC ANC Provincial Health sub-committee, Dr. Madeleine Muller, National Secretary of RUDASA (see below for more photographs from the meeting)
|
Present: 67 members from Ward 6
Supporting organisations: RuDASA (Rural doctors
associations of South Africa), TAC (Treatment Action Campaign), ANC, Friends of
Chintsa, SANCO, CERPA (Chintsa East Ratepayers Association), Buccaneers
Backpackers, Angels School, Chintsa East Public School, Acacia Tree Nursery
School, Yekelela Play and Guest Farm, Wild Coast FM.
Chairperson and Co-chair of
meeting: Nokuphumla
Pakamile and Dr Trudy Thomas
Speakers:
·
Mr Thabang Maseko: EC
Provincial secretary of the Treatment Action Campaign
o
Gave
an overview of the history and activities of the TAC in supporting civil
society in communicating with the government. If Chintsa has 15 interested
members a branch can be started
·
Dr Madeleine Muller National
Secretary of the Rural Doctors Association of South Africa
o
Gave
an overview of current health care services in the Great Kei and the health
care needs in the area.
·
Dr Nozipho Jaxa: Member of EC
ANC Provincial Health sub-committee
o
Gave
an overview of the ANC Health plan including NHI and primary health care
engineering.
Background
Ward 6 is a geographical
challenging area as it spans over a large area. The three semi-urban villages –
Chintsa, Haga Haga and Kei Mouth & Morgan Bay are more than an hour’s drive
from each other. Members of the
community have noted the lack of easy access to preventative, routine and
emergency medical services especially in Morgan Bay, Haga Haga and Chintsa:
Clinic
access for Chintsa:
·
Kwelera
Clinic is 28km away and will be part of Buffalo City Metro when the handover
happens. Since 2010 it has provided a NIMART (ARV) nurse that initially visited
the clinic twice a month with the mobile clinic and currently comes once a
month on a Wednesday. The nurse from Kwelera provides HIV and TB care but has
missed visits when there were staff shortages or lack of transport.
·
Mooiplaas
clinic is 27 km away and will form part of Amathole District from 1 September.
To
reach either clinic residents of Chintsa has to first catch a taxi to town and
then another 1-2 taxis to reach the clinic. In practice these clinics are
therefore out of reach for the average citizen and residents usually attend
services at Gateway Frere, DVDH or Empilweni Gompo CHC.
Mobile clinic services:
·
The
Great Kei area was traditionally serviced by 3 mobile clinics that provided basic
health care services. The mobile clinic that visited the East Coast resort road
stopped at a multitude of stops along this road including Crossways, Bulura,
Glen Eden, Chintsa West, surrounding farms etc. Since provincialisation of
health services this has been reduced to one mobile clinic and service to this
area have been cut to one mobile clinic point visit (Chintsa East) twice a
month. The other mobile vehicles were written off and condemned by the traffic
department during the transfer of assets from Amathole health district to
Buffalo City municipality. Currently the visits are usually on the 2nd
last Wednesday and last Thursday of the month. No timetable has been
distributed and many residents are uncertain when to expect the mobile clinic.
·
In
2010 Friends of Chintsa, the community, supporting NGO and Department of health
renovated a steel container in Chintsa East into a building that can be used as
a health post. Buffalo City health district designated this as a health post
that will be visited by a nurse from Kwelera clinic. Initially it was hoped
that this could be a weekly service from Kwelera clinic with full primary
health care services but unfortunately due to staff shortages it is currently
only a monthly visit from the nurse providing ARVs.
Ambulance services:
·
One
of the most often voiced complaints is the unreliability of the ambulance
services to provide support with medical emergencies in the community. It can
be difficult to get hold of the ambulance service, or the ambulance takes
several hours to arrive or on occasion does not come at all.
Health care
needs of Ward 6 Residents
Residents
of ward 6 need health care access for the following reasons:
·
Family
planning and condom provision
·
The
support and provision of Youth and Adolescent services
·
Easy
access to prevention services such as immunisations, pap smear, nutritional
assessments, BP and diabetes screening and HIV testing
·
Early
screening, detection and management of TB
·
Education
on reduction of alcohol intake and smoking.
·
Education
on the importance of exercise
·
Management
and treatment of acute illnesses and minor accidents
·
Management
of chronic illnesses such as diabetes, HIV, Epilepsy, HT, mental health etc.
Resolutions:
Health post and mobile clinic
services
·
All
areas in Ward 6 need at least 2-3 weekly access to primary health care services.
In Chintsa this can be provided as follow:
o
The
local clinic could provide a nurse with a stock of primary health care drugs to
Chintsa Health post 2 or 3 times a week. When Chintsa falls under Amathole this
could be Mooiplaas clinic. A similar arrangement can be made for Morgan’s bay
with Cwili Clinic.
o
The
Mobile clinic could increase its visits to weekly visit to Chintsa East Health
post.
o
Doctors
living in the area are willing to support this clinic with emergency health
care when available to do so provided that the DOH supplies them with relevant
medication and equipment.
·
Each
Health post could be supported by a team of 3 - 5 Community Health care workers
that can support the community based outreach teams. They will start by doing a
baseline analysis of the disease profile of ward 6.
·
Infrastructure
at the clinic could be improved by relevant authority or local NGO support to
include a secure dispensary where emergency and chronic medication can be kept.
·
The
community is aware that Kwelera clinic will be moving to the metro whilst ward
6 remains under Amathole District. THE
COMMUNITY THEREFORE REQUESTS, AS A MATTER OF URGENCY, THAT THE CHINTSA HEALTH
POST BE HANDED OVER TO MOOIPLAAS CLINIC AND THE NECESSARY EXTRA PROVISION OF
NURSING STAFF BE PLANNED FOR TO PROVIDE STAFFING TO THE HEALTH POST.
·
For
this interim measure to work it is essential the DOH works closely with the
transport services to ensure that both mobile clinic and transport of nurses to
the health post do not lapse.
Ambulance access:
·
Ward
6 residents need guaranteed ambulance access with reasonable response times.
Relevant persons need to meet with the local ambulance services to determine
the challenges in ambulance provision and to formulate a plan to address these.
Emergency numbers and processes must be easily accessible to residents
A clinic for Chintsa
·
Ward
6 residents need to have easy access to a full set of primary health care
services.
·
The
Department of Health is requested to do a feasibility study on the possibility
of building another clinic for Ward 6 in Chintsa.
The task team will present
these resolutions to the ward councillor of ward 6, Mrs Nosipho Ngabayana, who
will table them at the Great Kei Muncipality. The G/Kei Councillor for Health
will then take the Great Kei recommendations to the Buffalo City Metro as a
matter of urgency as the community is concerned that the handover from Buffalo
City Metro to Amathole district may delay matters further.
Responsibilities of ward 6
residents
·
Residents
of ward 6 wish to better and improve their own health and are requesting better
health information. Local organisations and local health care professionals are
interested to become involved in education on prevention programs, nutrition,
HIV, TB etc. for the local community
·
Residents
of ward 6 wish to be informed of the progress on the above resolutions and to
monitor its implementation
·
Residents
of ward 6 will support local initiatives that promote health and health care
service delivery
·
Organisations
in ward 6 can help support the training of CHWs if posts for CHWs are created
by DOH in our areas
Drafted
31st August 2013
Dr. Madeleine Muller, Nokuphumla Pakamile (Friends of Chintsa Committee member) and Dr. Trudy Thomas consult before start of meeting
Meeting members are led in song by Nokuphumla Pakamile at commencement of the meeting
Meeting members fill in a register
Dr. Nozipho Jaxa talks about the ANC's Health Care responsibilities
- photos by Odwa Shaun Mtshini
