Homoeopathy centre keeps Umbilo residents healthy

World Homoeopathy Day is observed every year on April 10 to commemorate the birthday of Dr Hahnemann, the founder of Homoeopathy. In a three-week series, Berea Mail has discovered how Homeopathy works. In this, the final article in the series, we chat to members of the Kenneth Gardens Homoeopathic Community Health Centre.

THE homoeopathic health centre in Umbilo was set up through a partnership between Senzokuhle Wellness Centre, an initiative of residents at Kenneth Gardens and the homoeopathy department at Durban University of Technology (DUT).

The centre has long catered to the community at Kenneth Gardens and surrounds. Three full-time volunteers run the centre alongside two nurses and they are assisted twice a week by fifth year homoeopathy students from DUT. The students, accompanied by Dr Silvana Niebar, visit the clinic to offer their expertise and promote healing through homoeopathy.

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“We treat a wide range of conditions, including aches and pains, skin conditions, anxiety, depression, and chronic conditions, ” said Niebar who divides her time between lecturing at DUT and running a private practice.

Project director for the Senzokuhle Wellness Centre, Khanyi Sibiya has been serving her community on a voluntary basis since 2010.

“I started volunteering in 2010, Zethu Jali joined in 2011 and Kukie Mkonto joined this year. Martha Phehlukwayo, a professional nurse and Gladness Sibiya, an enrolled nurse run the centre with us. On Mondays and Wednesdays DUT students come to the centre. Before Covid-19 they also did home visits for patients who couldn’t come down to the centre,” she said.

Elizabeth Fabian, who lives at Kenneth Gardens is one of the patients who has benefited from home visits. Fabian said the right side of her body was paralysed after she suffered a stroke in 2013. Homoeopathic experts from the wellness centre would visit her at her home to treat her for high blood pressure.

“They are very helpful. If you have a problem you speak to them and they will help,” said Fabian.

While home visits have been limited since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, the centre currently caters to about seven regular patients.

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“Before Covid-19, there were a lot more patients- between 10 and 15 patients- visiting the centre as well as several patients who were treated in their homes,” said Sibiya.

Over the years, she has seen many community members benefit from homeopathic treatment.

“One of the patients who visits the clinic regularly has high blood pressure and diabetes – homeopathy is helping her. There are many others who are helped, including the children who live here. They visit the clinic whenever they are sick. It helps that the clinic is here so people don’t have to travel to a doctor. We can also check up on the patients and make sure they are taking their medication,” she said.