VILLAGES ARE DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES
Fed-up residents raise R320,000 in Willowvale
How two remote rural communities scrimped, saved and fund-raised for six years to building a clinic because of the long, lonely, dangerous journey to reach the nearest one.
Fed up with having to travel nearly 15km to seek medical help from the nearest clinic – sometimes on foot after missing the only bus that passes by their homes – Lurwayizo villagers in Willowvale have clubbed together and raised R320,000 to build their own health post.
A health post is not a clinic but it provides basic health care and family planning in rural areas.
The facility – which contains two consulting rooms, a pharmaceutical shop, a kitchen and a counselling room – has received the blessing of health MEC Helen-Sauls-August, who promised to stock it with medicinal supplies, saying it was a “win-win situation” for the state and the villagers.
The village is on a slope about 15km from Dwesa beach and about 40km from Madwaleni hospital in Elliotdale.
Lurwayizo-Mendwane health post board chair Mboniswa Rwayi said apart from a bus that drove past the village at 6am, there was no other public transport to get them to the nearest clinic in Mpozolo village, about 15km away.
People who missed the bus walked the long route, where there were stretches with only thick bushes.
The same bus drove again past their homes at around 6pm. “Many sick people have died walking on this road over the years.
“In winter, when it gets dark early it is risky,” he said.
Rayi said the idea of a health post had been conceived around 2012 and residents of Lurwayizo had been fund raising ever since.
It had not been easy as many people survived through fishing. Others chopped wood in forests to sell while the rest of the families depended on pension grants for their survival.
“We encourage communities to start health posts as there is no government that can build a clinic for every village,” said the MEC at the unveiling of the Lurwayizo health post on Saturday.
She said the post would operate once a month with staff from nearby health facilities helping out.
“This is what SA is about – making partnerships and taking SA forward.”
Sauls-August said the challenge for many rural areas was that there could be up to 24 villages in a municipal ward but they were separated by many kilometres.
She urged women to ensure that their husbands got tested for cancer, diabetes and HIV/ Aids.
Sauls-August donated wheelchairs to three disabled Mpozolo villagers and her department dispensed free medical services to hundreds of villagers as part of the Thuma Mina health campaign.
Disabled Novusile Mhlahlo, 65, was paralysed after being assaulted in Cape Town in 2010.
After returning to Mpozolo, she never went to a doctor. For nine years she had been confined to her bed. But on Saturday, she could not hold back tears, saying she would now be able to wheel herself out of her room to bask in the sun.