Authorities reach out to Mohaleshoek

Residents of the Mohaleshoek informal housing area next to the R500 between Carletonville and Fochville received much-needed help this week.

Members of the Police in Wedela as well as various officials from the Department of Health visited them on Friday. According to the police in Wedela’s Social Crime Officer, Sgt Zikhona Sifuba, the SAPS shared information about the crimes that most commonly affect this particular area, such as housebreaking, theft and domestic violence.

“We also encouraged affected women to open cases to get protection orders,” Sibuba told the Herald.

The biggest outreach was, however, by the health officials. According to Mrs Nkateleng Dlamini, the manager of occupational therapy services around Merafong, they try their best to reach all the patients who may need their services. There is a particular need for occupational health in our area because of all the patients who are bound to wheelchairs due to spinal cord injuries caused by mining accidents.

“As there is not enough space for our services at all the clinics, we usually take our patients to the Greenspark Clinic by ambulance as there is enough space at this facility,” says Dlamini.

She adds that the Department of Health also have physiotherapists, audiologists, speech therapists, optometrists and even podiatrists available to give free services to government patients in our area.

“Many people do not realise how expensive these services are if you should have had to pay for them. As a government patient you can get everything for free,” Dlamini says.

There was also a dietician as well as other health workers who, amongst other things, did HIV/Aids tests, at Friday’s outreach.