MBOMBELA- The Phelophepa Health Train is bringing much needed health care services free of charge to thousands of the poor residents of Mbombela Municipality from today ( May 12).
According to Miss Thuli Lubisi a representative from the health train, services of the train were initially scheduled to begin last week however due to the election processes, they were postponed and the train will consume with its duties on May 12 until May 16.
“We will now be available for a week instead of two and the train will be coming to the province every year, ” she said.
She said doctors and specialities in the train will provide screening of cancer and diabetics, health clinic services, optical eye services, dental services,pharmacy for minor ailments and counselling services.
From Mbombela the train will move to Mkhuhlu from 19 until the 23rd May, then to Acornhoek from May 26 until the 30th and continue to be in Acornhoek from June 2 to the 6th.
This eighteen coach train, with its nineteen resident staff members, is fondly known as the “miracle train” and carries the most modern medical equipment on board.
The Phelophepa Health Train is the world’s first primary healthcare hospital on wheels it uses the existing rail network to make quality medical care an accessible reality for many of South Africa’s most remote communities.
The name ‘Phelophepa’ combines elements of Sotho and Tswana and roughly translated to means ‘good, clean health’ – which is exactly what this travelling health clinic provides.
The first Phelophepa Health Trains started operating in 1994 it won the United Nations Public Service Award in the ‘Improving Service Delivery’ category in June 2008. This remains just one of the many ways in which its positive impact has been recognised within and outside South African borders.
On accepting the award by that year Ms Lynette Coetzee the Senior Portfolio Manager (Health) at the Transnet Foundation, shared Phelophepa’s vision which “In the poorest parts of South Africa, a child’s story is a series of ‘ifs’.
If a child is better nourished, if he can get healthcare, if she can have an earlier diagnosis; they may have a brighter future. Phelophepa is designed to address some of these ‘ifs’.”
The success of the Phelophepa Health Train, together with the increased demand for healthcare services set in motion plans for another train. That dream became a reality when the second train, Phelophepa II, began operation in March 2012 in the Eastern Cape.
With both trains operating simultaneously, the extended reach of the primary healthcare offering enables potentially 360 000 patients to receive healthcare they would not have had access to before.
