Mobile health clinic in Orange Farm upgraded to a holistic community-driven health centre to reach more residents

Through the mobile clinic, and now the Mini-CLC, the residents of Orange Farm are no longer exclusively dependent on the hospitals in the area; the CLC offers an alternative that encourages more routine check-ins, rather than postponing care. This means that an expectant mother will have easy access to prenatal screening to safeguard her pregnancy, and children could receive oral care advice which ultimately impacts overall health.
 

“We have always been focused on prevention to drive down the need for care,” says Pillay. “With these community health solutions, we are seeing more people seek advice, education and screening services. This ultimately ensures that medical interventions are prevented, but more so, where interventions are needed. We are making technology available to the community through the Mini-CLC allowing care to be prioritised for these patients.”
 

This holistic community-driven platform is anticipated to improve the quality of life of the population living in Orange Farm with a focus on mother and child and dental care, as well as TB and HIV/AIDS screening.
 

“This is the third successful collaboration on a CLC we have had with Philips,” says Alef Meulenberg, Chairman of Rhiza Babuyile.“Through our projects in Diepsloot and Hani Park, we have seen that the CLC not only delivers essential access to quality healthcare, but also has a positive social impact on the community. These platforms offer infrastructure for future entrepreneurs, and a haven for the larger community to put themselves first – taking care of their health, offering social solace, and creating space to focus on their personal and professional development.”

The CLC is a scalable, self-sufficient concept for primary healthcare delivery and social development that Philips has pioneered in Africa and successfully introduced across the continent. To date, Philips have introduced similar solutions in Kenya, Ethiopia, DRC and South Africa as part of its commitment to improve the lives of 300 million people in underserved areas of the world by 2030.
 

The CLC platform aims to turn a health facility into a community hub, where technology is bundled with an integrated service package and community empowerment interventions. The facility offers a clean and reliable energy supply; efficient and durable indoor and outdoor lighting to enable extended opening hours and provides a safe playground and work space; healthcare equipment to enable patient monitoring, diagnosis and triage; and refrigeration for blood and supplies storage.
 

The mobile clinic that serviced the Orange Farm community from March 2018 will continue operations in the Orange Farm community to supplement the efforts of the mini-CLC; the aim is to increase access to healthcare for more members of the local community. The ambition is to enable additional screening of 150 residents a month with the permanent structure, enabling an increase in the patient pool to approximately 3,000 per month.
 

“At Philips we recognise the need for innovative collaboration to increase access to quality healthcare, enable effective service delivery and improve health outcomes for all, and it is energising to see the impact we are creating in different locations across South Africa with our Community Life Centres,” concludes Romulen Pillay.
 

For more information about the CLC platform, watch the Philips Mandera Community Life Centre Kenya and the First Philips Community Life Centre in the DRC videos.