Taking healthcare to the people

THE Healthworks Business Coalition has integrated the Mister Sister mobile clinics into their health service offering to address healthcare access challenges due to the country’s vast distances and high transport costs.

This was announced at Windhoek earlier this month.

Various stakeholders, such as Namibia Medical Care, have also expressed gratitude at being included in the mobile clinic initiative as this would allow them to deliver healthcare services to more people.

Established in 2011 by the Pharm­Access Foundation, the Mister Sister mobile clinic programme currently has five mobile clinics.

It was established to provide primary healthcare services by using vehicles converted into mobile clinics that visit remote and underserved communities on a monthly basis.

Following six years of successful piloting and operation, the PharmAccess initiative was recently handed to its long-term partners, Healthworks.

The handover is in line with the PharmAccess Foundation’s strategy of piloting and scaling innovative new healthcare solutions once viability has been demonstrated, and the foundations for successful scaling have been laid.

“We are delighted to be given the opportunity to continue the excellent work done from inception to date by the Mister Sister programme under the tutelage of PharmAccess,” said Healthworks CEO Peter van Wyk.

“We are looking forward to fully engage with the support companies and partners of the Mister Sister programme, and hope for meaningful dialogue with all partners involved to strive for the excellent benchmark already set,” he noted.

The mobile clinic services are provided through a unique public-private partnership with the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS), supported by local Namibian partners such as Namibia Medical Care (NMC).

The core target groups of the five Mister Sister mobile clinics are formal sector employees and their dependants, poor communities, pensioners, orphans and vulnerable children all over Namibia. Equipped with skilled nurses, as well as modern on-board testing facilities and medicines, the mobile clinics provide medical health checks and treatments, all in line with MoHSS national primary healthcare treatment protocols and guidelines.

The main health services provided include pregnancy testing and routine ante- and post-natal care, family planning advice, routine immunisations, child care and health monitoring.

“In case patients need to be referred for further treatment, an agreement with MoHSS is in place for referrals to public health facilities. The clinics also provide for the collection and delivery of chronic medication, and follow-ups for chronic conditions,” a statement by Healthworks reads.

The mobile clinics could be contracted to provide regular primary healthcare services at workplaces at an affordable cost.

“Additionally, corporates can contract Mister Sister to provide services to communities or specific target groups, as part of their corporate social investment programmes and policies,” Healthworks stated.