The Executive Mayor of Tshwane, Solly Msimanga, accompanied by the MMC for Health, Sakkie du Plooy, today conducted oversight to Atteridgeville Clinic to see for himself the quality of healthcare the people of Atteridgeville and surrounding communities are receiving at this particular facility.
“I am pleased at the level of service provided by this Tshwane-based facility despite the odds they face. I mean, the personnel at this facility are working tirelessly to ensure that people are getting access to basic and decent healthcare despite the challenges they face with respect to the volume of patients they see and the resources they have at their disposal. This sentiment was also shared by the community members waiting patiently to be seen by the medical professionals.
This facility deals with a whole host of emergent cases in addition to seeing patients with chronic ailments such as high blood pressure, diabetes, TB and HIV & AIDS. This facility also services the prenatal, postnatal and paediatric needs of some of the members of this community.
I therefore thank the personnel at this facility and its management for the remarkable work they are doing despite the odds they face which we have duly noted and have committed to working to address so that they may take their work to the next level and see more patients. This will, in turn, ensure that the people of Tshwane have better access to decent, basic healthcare in our efforts to build a more caring Tshwane for those who live in it.” Mayor Msimanga remarked.
Appreciating that access to healthcare for poorer members of our community is a challenge the world over; we have taken steps to ensure that this is addressed as supported by our IDP and budget and our long term vision for the city.
By 2030, universal access to health services will be achieved through:
- Developing health care capacity based on the services that are rendered by the city. This will include better integration within the public and private health systems and allocation of adequate resources to deal with communicable and non-communicable diseases.
- Partnering with communities to develop community based care health services. The intervention allows for flexible delivery of health services while it improves the distribution of health information
- Strategic partnerships with the knowledge and innovation institutions towards developing efficient and effective health solutions.
- Instituting excellence in the provision of health services and monitoring our health outcomes
- Actively engaging our citizens towards the reduction of HIV prevalence and expansion of services towards addressing both management of HIV/Aids and prevention.
- Improving public health systems through smart health systems, integrated health information management and improving allocation of health resources to improve health care efficiency.
- Engaging in community based health care services and partnership with nonprofit sector in order to increase access to health information and services.
- Promoting innovation and integrated health approach to address physical and psychological health needs.
To this end the City has completed the upgrading and construction of Zithobeni and Block J.J Clinics. The two clinic infrastructures belong to the City. We are however, making them available for the GP Health Department to Manage and Operate them through an existing Service Level Agreement and these clinics will be fully functional in due course.
We are committed to ensuring that there is a progressive realization of access to healthcare and we are doing our part one step at a time to ensure that this human right is enjoyed by as many residents as possible.