THE Johannesburg City Council is re-engineering the provision of health and hygiene services to residents.
This was revealed by City and NGO officials during the community and City’s Department Health’s strategic planning workshop at Eastbank hall. They said they would be streamlining methods of service delivery, introducing best practices, developing new facilities and upgrading old ones, and would include communities in managing their own health.
Alexandra has serious health and hygiene challenges which are attributed to overcrowding, shack dwellings and the uncaring attitude of residents who dump rubbish anywhere. This attracts rats and cockroaches, encourages communicable and non-communicable diseases and chronic ailments.
In response, the city had provided a daily rubbish collection – only in this township – by Pikitup. But the conditions haven’t changed.
The new plan is designed to address these challenges through community participation in personal health management, and the engagement and training of local personnel to complement health officials.
Velisha Thompson of the Health Department, said in order to reduce and address the high mortality rate, prevent communicable diseases, violence and traffic-related injuries in Alexandra, it was essential to remake the primary health care system by including the residents’ participation.
This she said would also assist the country in achieving its commitment to the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations. The goals relate to the reduction of child mortality, improving mental health, combating HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria.
She said the re-engineering process would enhance residents’ responsibility for their health issues. “Most of their ailments are lifestyle-related, require adoption of good diets [and] commitment to regular exercise…” she said.
“The re-engineering process will target the neediest groups by attaching nurses to schools. Their role will be to ensure children are immunised, to strengthen their coping mechanisms against substance and alcohol abuse, [and] safeguard their sexual reproductive health against teenage pregnancies.”
She stressed that this required parental participation in caring for children, especially in preventing teenage pregnancies among girls by boys who are sexually active.
Thompson concluded that the process would introduce ward-based outreach teams linked to their nearest clinics which would conduct door-to-door health advisory services, early detection of disease, promote health education and screen for referrals to clinics.
