City spends R100m to give clinics a clean bill of health
03-12-2014
The City of Johannesburg is to spend nearly R100 million on the building of new state-of-the-art clinics or the refurbishment of existing ones in the New Year.
Member of the Mayoral Committee for Health and Social Development, Councillor Nonceba Molwele, says the infrastructure development is in response to the growing healthcare needs of communities across all the City’s seven regions.
According to MMC Molwele, the building and upgrading of these primary healthcare facilities is in line with Johannesburg’s Growth and Development Strategy 2040 (GDS 2040) and the infrastructure requirements of the Corridors of Freedom.
The eight clinics that will either be built from scratch or refurbished will bring to 13 the number of primary healthcare facilities the City has provided residents over the past few financial years.
It will also bring the total cost of clinic building and refurbishment programme to more than R150 million.
The eight clinics to be built or refurbished are in Zandspruit, Noordgesig, Orchards on Louis Botha Avenue in Parktown, Parkhurst, Westbury, Halfway House, Ennerdale and River Park in Alexandra.
MMC Molwele says the building or renovation of the nine other clinics will be completed December 2015.
Thanduxolo Mendrew, CEO of the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA), the entity managing and overseeing the construction and refurbishment of the clinics, says the Westbury facility will be upgraded to deliver comprehensive healthcare services to the local community, including tuberculosis treatment, chronic care, antenatal and post-natal care, child healthcare services, HIV-Aids care, antiretroviral medication, and cancer and prostate cancer screening.
The 2 080sqm facility, which is situated at the corner of Du Plessis and Westbury streets, will also accommodate auxiliary and support services.
In March this year, Executive Mayor Councillor Parks Tau opened the R17,1 million Slovoville Clinic, about 30km from Dobsonville, Soweto.
The clinic, which serves a community of more than 8 000 people, replaces a makeshift structure the community had been using for a number of years.
The clinic is named after Joe Slovo, an SACP and ANC stalwart and the first Minister of Housing in the late former president Nelson Mandela’s Cabinet.
Mpumelelo Clinic, in Ivory Park, which also operated from a prefabricated building for more than 20 years, was completed earlier this year. It was officially opened by MMC Molwele in September.
Built at a cost of R12.7-million, the modern clinic caters for healthcare needs of more than 3 000 residents a month.
Other completed clinics are Freedom Park, built at a cost of R10.5-million; and Davidsonville in Roodepoort and Petervale in Bryanston; which have been upgraded at a cost of R3-million each.
Mendrew says these healthcare facilities offered full and comprehensive primary health are services.