Prior to the establishment of the new clinic there were only two public healthcare clinic facilities catering for a growing community of 300,000 people in Diepsloot.
The R5m clinic is equipped with advanced technology for prenatal care, GP consultations through telemedicine (video-call consultations) and a fully stocked dispensary service. The clinic has also completed the construction of an emergency room which it plans to have operational by next year.
Major sponsors of the clinic include global pharmaceutical company Viatris, the primary donor for the building of the clinic; and the Philips Foundation, which provided the diagnostic and healthcare technology.
Previously, Rhiza Babuyile’s mobile healthcare clinics enabled the organisation to reach approximately 1,400 people per week. With the new brick-and-mortar facility, the clinic will now be able to reach more than 2,000 patients per week.
“The resources and funds that have gone into this project are an investment into the lives of the Diepsloot community which has long deserved access to quality and affordable primary healthcare,” says Rhiza Babuyile’s chief operations officer, Rodney Makube.
Through a partnership with the Gauteng Department of Health (DOH), the clinic will be assisting the government with its child immunisation programme, family planning services for young women and the ongoing Covid-19 vaccine roll-out.
“The clinic will provide patients with quality service and patients will be treated with the dignity they deserve. One of the benefits of the clinic’s service is that it costs a fraction of the cost of seeing a private doctor, with a consultation ranging between R100 and R200,” Makube continues. Patients will be charged a minimal fee in order to ensure the sustainability of the clinic in the long term, he explains.
