PHC clinic works to avoid patient delays

THE Bluff Primary Healthcare (PHC) Clinic offers varied services to its patients, often with long waiting times, which the nurse in service manager, Grace Mufamadi, hopes to alleviate through planning and educating the community.

“As a manager I am often challenged by patients who don’t understand why things can’t operate like in the past, with shorter waiting times. What they fail to realise is that in the past certain services were allocated to take place on specific days, making the outing to the clinic quicker. The health system has evolved and the disease profile has changed and patients’ various health needs have to be accommodated. This happens with the limited available resources, especially with a shortage of skilled PHC nurses in the country. This means longer queues and longer waiting times,” said Sr Mufamadi.

She added that all consultations require copious amounts of documentation and each consultation needs to be treated on an individual basis. “Along with that, each patient that comes in has to be asked if they know their HIV status and if not, a test will be performed. There is a skills shortage in the country and PHC is a specialised field, with not enough qualified primary health care nurses. Not every nurse at the clinic is trained as a primary health care nurse and only those who are can perform the duties required. The others perform duties as per the scope of their training.

With this in mind, I hope people will be aware we are doing all we can to ensure each patient is given the care they need and that we get it right the first time, every time.”