Bez Valley Clinic operational manager, Sister Alice Kunene, said the ICDM is playing a critical role in the fight against chronic diseases.
She said the Intergrated Chronic Disease Management (ICDM) is the Health Department model to improve service delivery, focusing on chronic illnesses.
“It is based on public participation. It empowers individuals to take responsibility for their health,” she said.
She said the model has three segments.
“There is the primary prevention section. Here we promote early detection and appropriate screening and support. We encourage patients to go for tests whenever they feel something unusual in their bodies. This helps when treating and managing the disease or illness,” she said.
She said the secondary prevention involves providing appropriate treatment and support.
“If the patient was diagnosed early, it is easy to apply the relevant treatment. That may lead to total healing or quicker healing, or the management of the disease,” she said.
She said the tertiary prevention talks about rehabilitation.
“Here the patient has been diagnosed and treatment has been administered. Now the patient has to be given support so that he/she would go back to his community being rehabilitated,” she said.
According to Sister Kunene, there has been visible improvement in treating patients with chronic diseases since the introduction of this model.
She said as part of this model, the clinic has introduced a booking system for chronic patients.
“This is helping because we know how many patients we should expect on that day and also what treatment they need. We prepare their medication on a day before. When they arrive in the morning we check them and they do exercises. They then get their medication according to their responses to their treatments and they go,” she said.
Sister Kunene believes the model has improved the operation of the clinic.
“This model has reduced the waiting time for our patients. It has relived the congestion at the clinic as the patients do not stay long. They come and do what they are here for and go,” she said.
The model also encourages patients to be part of support groups, thereby providing support and ecouragement to each other.
Those who are recovering, encourage those who are still ill. The health workers are then able to motivate them in a group.
Sister Kunene said in the support groups, the club facilitator groups patients together in small groups.
“These groups comes to the clinic at different times. They are attended to as a group. Our club facilitator prepares the medication for them and other treatments for them as a group,” said Sister Kunene.
