Aug 19, 2019

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

New Mini-Community Life Centre (CLC) inaugurated in Orange Farm to alleviate pressure on the health system and enable community development

Philips South Africa Commercial (Pty) Ltd (“Philips”) and Rhiza Babuyile deliver on their commitment to impact the lives of residents in Orange Farm, where access to quality health services are needed the most.
The Mini-Community Life Centre (CLC) will alleviate pressure on the local health system by facilitating early diagnosis and treatment to address the need for increased access and improved quality care as top agenda items for health in South Africa.
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, family planning, men’s health, as well as HIV/AIDS screening.

Orange Farm, Johannesburg, South Africa – Philips, in collaboration with Rhiza Babuyile is strengthening community and primary health by upgrading an existing mobile health clinic into a Mini-Community Life Centre (CLC) in Orange Farm, Gauteng.

The Mini-CLC is a holistic community-driven facility that is designed to provide access to quality primary health services where it is needed the most. The collaborative commitment to improving the health outcomes for residents in the area started with the introduction of a mobile clinic in March 2018. Since its inception, the mobile clinic has grown from strength to strength and already impacted the lives of 10,000 (ten thousand) direct beneficiaries till date.

“With a population of nearly 80,000¹ inhabitants, it quickly became clear that the need of the residents in Orange Farm rapidly outgrew the mobile solution, calling for a more permanent fixture,” says Romulen Pillay, Managing Director, Philips.

Increased access and improved quality care remain top of the agenda for healthcare in South Africa, and we believe in-community solutions like the Mini-CLC will ultimately alleviate pressure on our health system by facilitating early diagnosis and treatment,”

Romulen Pillay

Managing Director, Philips South Africa.

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.

For further information, please contact:

Radhika Choksey

Philips Group Communications - Africa

Tel.: +31 6 25 25 9000

E-mail: radhika.choksey@philips.com

¹ https://census2011.adrianfrith.com/place/798034

About Royal Philips

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving people's health and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care. Philips leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver integrated solutions. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, image-guided therapy, patient monitoring and health informatics, as well as in consumer health and home care. Philips generated 2018 sales of EUR 18.1 billion and employs approximately 77,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News about Philips can be found at www.philips.com/newscenter.