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City officials visited busy inner city
clinics to gauge the response to National Child Health Week - and came away
impressed.
IT'S about 12 noon and Yeoville Clinic is
bursting at the seams with people, many of them mothers carrying infants, waiting
patiently to be seen.
The bustle of a busy waiting room
The waiting room is busy. A queue snakes
from one consultation room, where a nurse is attending to scores of babies, to
the other end of the waiting room. The sister in charge of the clinic, Granny
Stobber, says the number of mothers bringing their children is higher than
normal this week.
"We [have been] attending to an average of
77 children [a day] since the beginning of this week. Mainly they are here to
get different services that we are offering during this week."
For Yeoville Clinic, and many other clinics
in Johannesburg,
the fortnight from 7 to 20 September is different from the norm. Many are
taking part in National Child Health Week, a week-long campaign to encourage
communities to work with the government in response to the high number of babies
and young children who die every year in South Africa. Johannesburg has extended the national week.
According to the national Health Department,
at least 75 000 children under the age of five die annually.
On Tuesday, 8 September, the mayoral
committee member for health, Bengeza Mthombeni, visited Yeoville Clinic and
several other clinics in the inner city to get "first-hand knowledge" of the
services being delivered by City clinics.
Taking Mthombeni and other City officials through
the clinic, Stobber said it serviced a big area that included Berea, a suburb as large as Yeoville.
"Because we are currently running a
campaign to ensure the good health of children, we have set up a desk where
parents can come in with their children to get services that we are offering
during National Child Health Week."
Services
These include administering vitamin A to
children aged between 12 and 59 months. Parents of children aged from six to 59
months are also encouraged to bring in their children for de-worming tablets
and a free assessment of their nutritional state.
Looking after the health of the city's children
She did, however, bemoan the shortage of
staff at the clinic because some were leaving for "greener pastures". "As we
speak, one nurse is leaving at the end of this month because she has been
offered better."
At the tiny Joubert Park Clinic, a desk has
been set up outside, manned by a nurse - busy administering a tablet to a screaming
child when the officials visit.
The sister in charge, Vicky Mathe, said its
National Child Health Week Campaign was going along smoothly but like Yeoville
Clinic, it was taking a lot of strain from the volume of people coming to get
treatment.
"We are overwhelmed by the number of women
who come for treatment at the clinic. We are located in an area where there is
also a large number of immigrants from neighbouring countries, most of whom
come for antenatal care just days before they give birth, and of course from
destitute people from the inner city."
Outside the clinic, hundreds of people
lounge in Joubert
Park; some have made the
park their home, while others are just taking a breather.
"We have been called a number of times to
collect people who have either succumbed to hunger or other physical ailments
in the park. We have even attended to stabbed people in the park," Mathe said.
She sometimes feared for the safety of the
patients and her staff because of the unruly behaviour of people in the park,
she added.
Mthombeni, who listened attentively through
the tour of the two clinics, commended staff members for the sterling job they were
doing. "What you must remember is that you are not doing this for the City of Johannesburg, but for the
people who come here to get help," he said.
On the National Child Health Week Campaign,
he said it was ongoing and urged parents to take full advantage and help
reverse preventable deaths among children.
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