SIGHS of relief were audible when volunteers at the Glenumore Senior Citizens Care Centre received the welcome news that McCord Hospital had agreed to deploy a doctor to serve the needs of the elderly at the clinic once a week.
This comes after articles appeared in Berea Mail highlighting the plight of the clinic, which was facing closure by the Department of Health after its regular doctor became to ill to carry on his valuable work at the clinic.
“We held a meeting with McCord Hospital last week. They were very understanding and agreeable to sending one of their doctors to the clinic. Due to the merging of McCord’s with the Overport Clinic, they had available doctors on hand,” said Irene Middelkoop from Glenumore Senior Citizens Care Centre.
“We are pleased to say we have a doctor this week and we will take it from here! We are very grateful to McCord’s for agreeing to this. I think they agreed as they realised having to integrate our almost 500 patients would’ve been a bigger job than just sending a doctor to us! So we have been revived,” said chairperson, Paddy Thornton.
The clinic, which services the elderly in Glenwood, Glenmore and Umbilo, is run at the Glenwood Presbyterian Church, and was started in 1985 as an outreach by the medical superintendent at Addington Hospital, Margaret Barlow.
The aim was that patients wouldn’t have to go to the hospital and wait for their medication, instead it would be collected by the church and dispensed at the clinic by volunteers.
Fifteen volunteers help out on a Monday, when around 100 patients attend the clinic.
“We just want to get the word out to patients who usually attended our clinic, that we are still here,” said Irene.
