Pharmacists at work in the City

Health awareness days THE national Department of Health run campaigns throughout the year, supported by Johannesburg clinics. For more information on upcoming campaigns, click here. RELATED LINKS: Major public hospitals and clinics FOR a list of municipal community clinics, provincial hospitals and care centres, with street addresses and telephone numbers, click here. City scheme swells skills base JOBURG offers internship and learnership programmes to students with a view to boosting the skills in the national labour force. Read more Health and education go hand-in-glove AT Rosettenville Clinic ongoing healthcare approaches aimed at educating males are making a difference in areas where traditional patriarchy still rules the roost. Read more

Choose a healthy lifestyle The City's pharmacy depot is promoting healthy lifestyle choices during its annual pharmacy week – and pharmacies are here to help. August 31, 2007 By Lesego Madumo CHANGE your life – make healthy choices, is the theme for the City's pharmacy week this year, running from 3 to 8 September. Held annually, the week was designed to raise awareness of the kinds of services that the City's pharmaceutical depot – based in Langlaagte – renders to all City clinics. Another aim is to encourage people to approach their local pharmacies for help with minor complaints and ailments. It is a partnership of the Department of Health, the South African Pharmacy Council and the Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa. Joburg's pharmaceutical depot procures and supplies primary healthcare drugs to all health sub-districts in the city, explains Nkosinathi Nkabinde, the health department's spokesperson. Echoing his remarks, Jimmy Nombeu, the operations manager at that depot, notes that it supplies 84 City clinics in all seven regions with medical drugs. "We work hand-in-hand with them." The depot procures its medicine through the Department of Health and the Gauteng medical depot in Auckland Park. In the last week of every month, all City clinics have to submit a list of the medicines they need, he says. "We then package the orders [and] the regions are called to come and collect their orders." Throughout the week the depot will reiterate the message – using posters, pamphlets, and public awareness campaigns – of the importance of living a responsible, safe and healthy lifestyle. Nkabinde says people will be encouraged to exercise and to eat healthily. Information will be available on supporting people with HIV or Aids, and on storing medicine properly. "[People] should take prescribed medicine as advised [to] avoid complications like multidrug resistance [MDR] and extreme drug resistance [XDR]," he adds. The pharmacy depot also trains interns to become pharmacists' assistants as part of the City's internship and learnership programme. About 100 students have taken part in the programme this year. Nombeu explains that once the training course is completed, the trainees are placed at City clinics for medicine control and stock management. Pharmacy week runs from Monday, 3 to Saturday, 8 September. For enquiries about the week or medicine call the City's pharmaceutical unit on 011 474 2959 or 011 6819 2282 or visit any of its clinics. Permission to use web site material Publishers may use material from this site free of charge, as long as: Credit is given to either the "City of Johannesburg website (www.joburg.org.za)" or to "Johannesburg News Agency (www.joburg.org.za)"; If the article is used online, a link is provided to the original article on this website; The name of the article's author is acknowledged; The webmaster is informed of how and where the material is used (fill in this brief online form). Johannesburg News Agency is operated by BIG Media at 011-484-1400 Print this Page E-mail this article to a friend Help using Joburg.org.za