Dis-Chem and Cipla Foundation have teamed up to take nurse-led primary healthcare to an underserved community in Cape Town.
Clinical nurse practitioner Patricia-Ann Smith will lead the clinic, supported by Dis-Chem and the Cipla Foundation. Image supplied.
Through a partnership between Dis-Chem’s Better Tomorrow programme and the Cipla Foundation’s Sha’p Left initiative, the clinic aims to remove everyday barriers to care, including high transport costs, lost working hours, and long queues at public health facilities.
Home to approximately 52,400 people across 14,000 households, Macassar is a growing, working-class community near Strand and Somerset West in Cape Town.
Most residents rely on the local community health centre for primary and maternity care.
Easing the pressure
The new clinic will help ease pressure on this already busy facility while also improving access to care for conditions including HIV, tuberculosis, diabetes, and hypertension.
Led by clinical nurse practitioner Patricia-Ann Smith, the new fee-for-service practice is fully licensed and can dispense medication up to Schedule 4.
This means patients can be examined, diagnosed and receive the required treatment and prescriptions during a single visit.
Joshila Shiba, Dis-Chem’s head of health equity and sustainability, says, “Better Tomorrow is about finding practical ways to bring quality care closer to communities.”
“Rather than building every solution from scratch, we partner with experienced organisations that already have proven, community-rooted models.
“Macassar gives us an invaluable opportunity to measure the real-world impact of this intervention and assess its long-term sustainability.”
Empowering the community’s nurses
At the heart of the clinic is Smith, a veteran healthcare professional with 37 years of nursing experience, who says the initiative has made a lifelong ambition a reality.
The Sha’p Left model supports qualified nurses, predominantly women, with the infrastructure, training, compliance support, and operational systems they need to establish independent practices.
Smith says, “I have always wanted to own a healthcare business, but nursing has always been about putting people first and building trust.”
She adds, “Caring for my own community means a great deal to me. Primary healthcare gives us an opportunity to prevent illness, promote healthier choices and improve quality of life.
“Being able to make quality healthcare more accessible while contributing to my community makes this practice especially meaningful to me.”
Self-sustaining primary healthcare
Designed by the Cipla Foundation, the Sha’p Left initiative aims to establish self-sustaining primary healthcare practices that can operate independently of ongoing philanthropic funding, extending access over time.
The model is built on the principle that trusted local clinical nurse practitioners are well placed to expand access to primary healthcare in their own communities.
