Quadcare Clinic not lost to Alex community
BALFOUR MALL – From Alex’s Sankopano Centre to Balfour Mall, Quadcare still services vulnerable communities.
When Dr Dulcy Rakumakoe accompanied her late granny to see a doctor as a six-year-old girl, little did she know that her grandmother’s words to her would one day ring true.
Granny Motlalepule Mary Rakumakoe had implored her grandchild to study hard at school so she could become a doctor and treat her one day.
This was so that granny did not have to endure the long queues at that particular doctor’s surgery as it was the only one for the entire Hammanskraal community.
“I just nodded in agreement without realising she had implanted a seed in me that would eventually germinate and grow to service the community,” said ‘Dr Dulcy’, as she is popularly known in Alexandra where she had one of her 10 Quadcare Clinics.
“Here I am today, a fully-fledged medical doctor serving various communities around the city of Johannesburg, though it was a pity my granny never lived long enough to see the seed she implanted in me germinate and grow to do just what she ordered – to serve the community,” Rakumakoe told Alex News in an interview after the launch of her latest clinic.
Quadcare had a clinic in Sankopano which opened its doors at the time the Covid-19 pandemic had begun spreading around the world like wildfire. Because of constant burglaries in which she lost valuable equipment, she relocated the clinic to Balfour Mall.
Despite having moved out of Alexandra, the clinic has not lost its touch with that community which it served, and which had also forged a close relationship with the township’s foremost philanthropist, Linda Twala, of the Phuthaditjaba-Qoqizizwe Centre in 17th Avenue.
“Those were the words of my late granny that drove me into medicine but also it was the crying need of our many grandmothers that have chronic illnesses and need to a doctor on a regular basis.
“If it’s not the long queues which reflect the need for more facilities to care for our communities, it’s the bad attitude and poor treatment that they are exposed to. I told myself I was going to be a different doctor and open a surgery where our people would be treated with the utmost respect they deserve.”
