MANDELA PARK. – Members of the Ipopeng Maqheku Luncheon Club at Mandela Park in Qwaqwa have requested Dr Benny Malakoane, the MEC for Health, for professional nurses to regularly come to their club and render their services to them.
They told the MEC that it would make their life easier since they were spending most of their time at the club. They added that it was expensive for them to take a taxi to the nearest clinic to collect their medication.
Apparently, they received those services before, but it was stopped.
However, Malakoane responded immediately to their request by saying he was not aware of the services which were stopped.
He made a promise to them that the services would return.
He spoke to them during the Free State Department of Health’s launch of Operation Back to Care at Mandela Park in Qwaqwa on Thursday (20/8).
“I am happy to hear from you that you need our services. I was not aware that they were stopped. I will make sure that it comes back.
“We came here because we wanted to see how you live. We encourage our elders to join the luncheon club because that would make our job of going house-to-house easier.
“We will be able to come to the club and help a big number. I wish the club can grow so that we can know that we get all of you here,” he said.
The club was launched in 2006 and it caters for elderly people from the age of 60 years. It currently has 40 elders of who seven are males.
Malakoane said with Operation Back to Care they identify areas which are in need, those which are under-serviced, with high levels of poverty, poor access to services and illiteracy.
He said they also wanted to let people know and experience the services that the department was rendering.
“We came with a full arsenal of our employees from the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) in the district offices.
“We do it in every district, because every district is expected to perform a programme of that nature every fortnight.
“However, we call this one a provincial event, because we are all here,” Malakoane said.
He said he was happy with the positive response they had received.
“We visited those areas to make sure that we experience their challenges so that when we come back to do interventions, we do informed interventions.
“We identified Ward 33 in Qwaqwa of which the statistics was well shared with everyone. We know that we are at the right place.
“We want to achieve a situation where our people have access to our services and there must be equitable distribution,” he said
