Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital opens new breast health clinic
Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospitals breast health clinic will alleviate congestion in outpatient departments and improve patient experience.
In commemorating World Cancer Day on February 4, the Gauteng MEC for Health and Wellness, Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko, opened a new breast health clinic at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital (CMJAH).
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Donated by Novartis South Africa, the facility aims to enhance breast cancer detection, treatment, and research in Gauteng, significantly improving access to specialised care.
This facility will alleviate congestion in outpatient departments, reduce waiting times, and improve patient experience. It will serve as a multidisciplinary centre for clinical care, research, and training in collaboration with Wits University.
Nkomo-Ralehoko explained that it was a no-brainer that a hospital that has been a pillar of hope and excellence for decades in cancer care received a breast health clinic. “This facility plays an essential role in providing life-saving cancer care to patients across the province and beyond.”
Country president, Novartis South Africa, Rachel O’Neale added that the global healthcare company’s mission was not only to reimagine medicines, but to also reimagine how access to medicine occurs, and the type of treatment and healthcare a patient requires across the whole spectrum of the disease.
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O’Neale added: “We need to achieve our company goals by being in partnerships for sustainable impact. As an innovative company, our expertise is attacking problems, and we also understand that to tackle some of society’s greatest healthcare challenges, we need to work through partnerships, because that is how you bring all the stakeholders together to truly understand the barriers that deny patients great quality healthcare, and then, systematically, work through those barriers by addressing each one of them.”
The opening of the clinic also highlights broader interventions in cancer care, including the expansion of radiation oncology centres from two to four in the province, and capacitating the CMJAH centre with more staff and medical equipment, to add to the ongoing efforts to reduce the oncology backlog.
CMJAH general surgeon Professor Jenny Edge noted that the clinic would provide a space for the staff to deliver clinical care, enhance their teachings, and start their research projects. “The result of having such a clinic must be improved breast healthcare for our patients, which can be achieved by working together as staff. Communication and co-operation are important for a good result.”
Concluding the breast health clinic’s opening proceedings, the Academic Hospital’s CEO, Gladys Bogoshi, acknowledged Edge for having the clinic as a solution for the hospital’s breast cancer patients.
She also took her hat off to the hospital’s oncology team. “It is through partnerships like these that we can change a patient’s experience at the hospital. “
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