UL Health, Wellness Centre offers upgraded support

The Health and Wellness Centre at the University of Limpopo (UL) has been upgraded to offer independent support to patients with tuberculosis (TB), HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STD).
In the past the centre offered primary health care, dispensary and employee health and wellness services but now also offers monitoring, managing, counselling and evaluation of HIV and TB programmes.
A media release issued by the university on Friday stated that the upgrades at the centre are in follow-up of the recent graduation of the centre’s five clinical practitioners who successfully completed the Nurse Initiated Management Antiretroviral Therapy (Nimart) programme.
“The Nimart course was developed by the South African Government as an urgent response to the call to action to strengthen control against HIV and TB epidemics and is specifically developed for and aimed at professional nurses working in the field of HIV and TB management,” the statement read.
“The intensive programme focused on the management of TB, HIV and STDs as well as strengthening counselling skills, monitoring and evaluation of HIV and TB programmes. Previously, the nurses at the health centre could not offer the above services without the supervision of an external medical doctor, which limited access to these services and delayed service delivery. The programme improved the nurses’ knowledge by equipping them with skills to deal with current risky trends in dealing with HIV/Aids, TB and STDs. This means the nurses at the UL Health and Wellness Centre have a licence to assess, diagnose, treat, and support patients living with HIV.”
Centre director Norman Letebele, reportedly said patients will receive better services from practitioners
who are better qualified. “The nurses were provided with clinically intergraded knowledge to reduce high-rising HIV infection statistics. There is a need for skilled human capital to help fight the pandemic and I am optimistic that the staff at the Health Centre is ready for knock-off punches,” Letebele said.

Herbert Rachuene
>>herbert.observer@gmail.com