Two health pods, designed to take primary healthcare facilites to disadvantaged communites, in the Empangeni and Mtubatuba areas which have stood idle because of a lack of appropriate towing vehicles are now ready for deployment, thanks to the donaton of two new vehicles.
Unjani Clinics currently operates 142 facilites, including 133 clinics, two mobile clinics, and seven health pods natonally. However, two of its seven pods have long remained unused because of vehicle constraints. That all changed when the South African Muslim Charitable Trust (SAMCT) stepped in to assist, providing two vehicles collectvely valued at R680 000.
Commentng on its gesture, SAMCT representatve, Mr. Gaff Osman, said: “Many of South Africa’s disadvantaged community members simply do not have access to or cannot afford transport to travel to healthcare facilites whenever necessary. There is an urgent need in this country to take primary healthcare to such communites and that is what Unjani Clinics is all about.”
“This is an organisaton commited to providing community access to affordable, quality care, but whose extension of its vital healthcare services to people in the under-served Empangeni and Mtubatuba regions had been compromised by transport issues,” he added.
Unjani Clinics seeks to provide effectve and inexpensive healthcare services to communites across South Africa by creatng a network of clinics owned and operated by Black female professional nurses. Its primary objectves are to empower Black women, improve the quality of and access to healthcare and create permanent employment opportunites within communites.
Founded on an owner-operator model and social franchising principles, the organisaton’s clinics serve this country’s under-served communites, ensuring quality healthcare at an affordable rate, together with the provision of medicines at the very point of need.
Mr. Osman said: “This is a most laudable venture and compliments the re-engineering and strengthening of this country’s healthcare system through the creaton of highly accessible community-based healthcare capacity where it is needed most. It is shiting primary healthcare tasks to professional nurses, thus ensuring more people have access to care and medicaton.”
“Given that Unjani Clinics is at the front-end of the clinic delivery mechanism and operates a very workable business model, the SAMCT was eager to assist by providing the vehicles needed in order that the two idle health pods in the organisaton’s possession could be put to their intended use and, in so doing, extend the reach of its nurses and the primary healthcare services they offer to a far greater number of disadvantaged people.”
The SAMCT was created in 2008, the result of a partnership between Old Mutual Unit Trusts and Al Baraka Bank, for the creation, marketing, and distribution of a suite of Shariah Funds. The organisation provides funding, services, and other resources for the improvement of the lives of the
vulnerable, deprived, and disadvantaged. It has been singularly successful in delivering sizeable assistance solutions throughout South Africa – irrespective of race or religion – and continues to work to support needy organisations in the fields of healthcare, social development, poverty alleviation and education.
According to the World Health Organisation, ‘primary healthcare is usually the first point of contact people have with their healthcare system and, ideally, should provide comprehensive, affordable, community-based care throughout life.’
Mr. Osman said: “Unjani Clinics has broken the healthcare status quo and is working to empower communities with knowledge, skills, and access to affordable care, so as to manage their health independently. The organisation is founded on the premise of educating and training nurses – who become owner-operators – for positive developmental and healthcare outcomes. The organisation’s innovative approach is delivering primary healthcare at the point of need and that is something to be encouraged and expanded upon for the benefit of otherwise deprived communities. Accordingly, we of the SAMCT are proud and privileged to be associated with an organisation so dedicated to both the concept of taking healthcare to the people and promoting the spirit of entrepreneurship and employment creation through its owner-operator nursing concept.”
“We believe our financial assistance will help in giving new impetus to both the delivery of primary healthcare in rural communies and the further promoon of entrepreneurship amongst nursing professionals,” Mr. Osman concluded.
