Mobile Clinic for the Delmas area is running at last
The mobile unit will pay visits to the rural areas of Wards seven, eight, and nine in the VKLM District.
About 4000 residents from Delmas Rural areas will once again have access to a fully serviced medical mobile clinic.
At the time of going to print, Diane Bath DA councillor at the Victor Khanye Local Municipality (VKLM) told Streeknuus that the unit would take to the roads again as from Tuesday, May 10.
The mobile unit will pay visits to the rural areas of Wards seven, eight, and nine in the VKLM District.
The excitement over a fully serviced mobile clinic follows a more than two-year struggle and blame shifting process over the reinstatement of the medical mobile unit.
As reported in Streeknuus (January and April), Bath wrote a letter to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) to request an urgent investigation into the poor medical services rendered by the Department of Health, possibly resulting in the violation of human rights of the people of the community of VKLM.
At the time, Bath informed Streeknuus that the mobile clinic meant to serve the community was standing idle at the Bernice Samuel Hospital in Delmas.
This apparently followed after a driver resigned in January 2020 and since then the services came to a halt as no provisions were made to appoint a new driver. The Department of Health have put the blame on at the door of VKLM due to budgetary restraints.
“This has negatively affected the provisioning of mobile health services to the community and thousand of residents were left without proper medical care.”
During March, Bath confirmed that the SAHRC was finally investigating the neglect of service delivery within the VKLM’s health care service.
Bath then also said that the SAHRC reported to have found the concerns raised by the Democratic Alliance to be true.
“Residents who come from as far as Izak Farm, Mimosa, Amfening, Tikkie Line, Sundra- and Eloff towns, Modder East Orchards, Rietkol, Breswoll and Katboschfontein as well as farm workers will no longer have to travel great distances to their nearest hospital,” said Bath.
“It was a more than two-year struggle, but with the help of the Mpumalanga Human Rights Commission the mobile clinic should be up and running on May 10. It was most definitely worth the struggle. It was done for the community,” Bath concluded.
