A group of private healthcare practitioners has joined hands with the Eastern Cape Health Department to bring much-needed healthcare services to underprivileged people from rural communities.
A team of specialists visited Gqebenya Village in Cacadu formerly known as Lady Frere, to provide services such as eye-care, cancer screening, reproductive and sexual healthcare services.
Access to healthcare services is vital to good health, however, many rural communities encounter barriers to health care. Some lack the financial means to pay for such services.
This initiative is bringing these critical services closer to the people.
Health practitioner, Nobukhosi Ben, laments the importance of the services which they are bringing to the community.
According to Ben “The critical service that people need is for breast cancer, throat cancer, pancreatitis. We found out that people are also shy to come to us but we try by all means to make sure that whilst they are in the waiting list we educate them about health related matters including mental health issues.”
Community members, mostly the elderly, came out in numbers to take advantage of this opportunity.
“We got a variety of services such as eye care; we have a range of specialists. We have an opportunity to check different illnesses. We are grateful for this opportunity,” says a community member in attendance.
“This is so good to us we don’t much money to go doctors so this is the easy way for us to get everything we need,” another community member adds.
The private practitioners want to extend this initiative to other parts of the province, and have called on other stakeholders to also invest in this project.
