Community clinic step for Smiths

TICH Smith and his wife, Joan, established the LIV Village in response to the poverty of the Amaoti community.

He said the result was a fundamental personal change.

“We were basically arrogant white South Africans in the old mould who understood very little about our country’s reality. We learned so much. We were broken down and built up as we started to realise the scale of unemployment and need.

“With LIV up and running, we want to focus more effort and resources on uplifting the Cottonlands community that surrounds our village.

“Fifteen thousand people live here and the unemployment rate is 80 percent. Apart from jobs, these people needed accessible, affordable medical care, and we knew we couldn’t accommodate them all at the children’s health-care clinic.

“Cipla (a private pharmaceutical company) agreed to open a clinic and fund its infrastructure, and we will raise the funds needed to run it and supplement the cost of medicine to the community.

“The Cipla Owethu Clinic partnership will mean locals won’t have to find money for transport to government hospitals, where resources are already stretched, and all their basic health needs can be met on their doorstep.”

Owethu opens today in a ceremony expected to be attended by Health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo and other local government representatives. It’s a fully serviced modular primary health-care clinic capable of serving 3 000 patients a month.