June 18, 2007
By Lesego Madumo
PRIMARY healthcare is set to benefit from a new partnership between the City's health department, the University of the Witwatersrand, Kwenda Marketing and Zenith Media.
The agreements, signed at the Metro Centre on Thursday, 14 June, are to last five years, pending renewal. They entail the promotion of primary healthcare facilities.
Wits will use the Wits Metro Cardiogym, jointly owned by the university and the City, to offer clinical support and improve the health of people with cardiac problems. "The gym must encourage [patients] to keep healthy and exercise regularly in order to ease stress and keep fit," said Jabulile Shabalala-Rakosa, the deputy director in the City's primary healthcare department.
It is part of the university's school of therapeutic sciences, which includes the departments of physiotherapy, occupational therapy and nursing. It has been strategically positioned on the education campus in Parktown.
"In order [for us] to assist with the rehabilitation of cardiac diseases, we are also offering through our services to extend the fitness and the wellness initiative to other employees of the metro and the public," said Wally Papendorf, the chairman of Superhearts. Superhearts are members of the Wits Metro Cardiogym.
Papendorf said the gym had medically trained staff to support the patients and supervise their progress. "If any problem is [encountered] there [will] be somebody who is well trained to take care of it."
It also offers stress-busting exercises, so helping people in stressful positions others who are exhausted. It offers fitness training and stress tests for senior citizens.
The gym is designed to help people with cardiac problems and those with chronic lifestyle diseases to regain their strength. Members of the public are welcome to join, for a monthly fee of R100. It also caters for patients from Johannesburg Hospital and private hospitals who are sent for rehabilitation.
The relationship means that the City will promote and market the Wits Metro Cardiogym internally to Metro staff and to the public at large.
For its part, Kwenda Marketing will undertake experiential marketing for City clinics, which entails marketing commodities like Maize Meal, Bokomo and Parmalat to people visiting the clinics.
It will earn revenue from these clients, donating 10 percent of the profit to the City, for it improve its clinics. Work will include fixing walls and water pipes, and planting gardens. Jobs will be created in the process.
Meanwhile, Zenith Media will install television sets in all City clinics' reception areas that will broadcast health messages to entertain and educate patients while they wait for service.
"Previously people spent two [or more] hours at clinics waiting for services. However, this is bound to change as soon as the process is implemented," said Zakhele Mahlangu, the chief executive of Zenith Media.
The footage will be changed monthly, be approved before it is broadcast and will be in line with the national Department of Health's programmes, like polio and measles week.
The agreement with Zenith Media will run for five years, with a three-month pilot programme in Eldorado Park, Alexandra and Soweto. "Thereafter the screens will be supplied to three clinics every two to three months, rolled out in a phase manner, and to the rest of Johannesburg City health clinics as a whole," reads the contract.
Echoing Mahlangu, Dr Refik Bismilla, the City's executive director of health, said Johannesburg had acknowledged that the government could not deliver excellent health services alone. "The City is in the process of expanding the range of primary healthcare services currently offered to residents."
He said the health department had to make sure that the partnerships worked for the benefit of all parties concerned. "We have to add value to all [these] initiatives. By 2010 the city hopes to have improved health services."
The health sector needed to use technology to benefit all communities in distributing health messages, Bismilla added.
Money received from all these partnerships will go into improving healthcare in Joburg and upgrading facilities in remote and destitute areas of the city.
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