The newly revamped Naledi Clinic in Soweto stands as a beacon of hope for the community, having officially opened its doors on Wednesday as one of only five clinics in the region operating 24 hours a day.

The announcement was made by Ennie Makhafola, the Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Health and Social Development, who was accompanied by the City of Joburg Mayor, Dada Morero.

This significant development comes after a two year battle to ensure the clinic was completed, aimed at addressing the dire healthcare needs of the community

Makhafola said a lot of hard work had gone into ensuring that the facility sees the light of day.

"For the past two years, we have been fighting to get this clinic completed because the situation has been dire for our communities. The conditions they were served under has not been good at all and we had to fight to ensure that we really speed up the process for the opening of the clinic...This is one of the clinics we have identified to ensure it serves the needs of this community for 24 hours a day."

He said that Naledi Clinic will be the 75th primary healthcare facility within the City of Johannesburg's seven regions.

"The purpose of opening the clinic is to reduce health disparities across the community, provide an effective patient care system and improve health and well-being of Naledi residents by providing health care services in a welcoming and supportive environment, with a commitment to health education and community engagement."

However, concerned community members in spite of their excitement over the beautiful facility, questioned the recruitment process with one community member saying with the rate of unemployment in the township, there should have been more young people benefitting through job opportunities.

A community member who did not want to be named said the opening of the clinic will make things easy for her as she will not have to travel far to get healthcare.

"I am happy that this will help a lot in terms of making things more convenient for us. I am also happy that this clinic will be operational 24-hours. This means, we will no longer struggle with transport," the resident said.

The state-of-the-art health care facility comes with 18 consultation rooms, including support buildings, with the capacity to accommodate larger volumes of patients and providing a wider range of services.

It is also conveniently located in the heart of Naledi, with easy access to public transport for residents.

Morero said the process to hire people and appoint small businesses was an open one as more than R16 million of the R50 million budget was earmarked for local businesses.

"The process for SMMEs was transparent. You would know that as a city when we award on this capital project, we do insist that there should be packages that are ring-fenced for SMMEs. The spend for SMMEs here was around R16 million of the total R50 million that we have spent on this clinic," the mayor said.

siyabonga.sithole@inl.co.za

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Joy and relief as new and improved Naledi Clinic reopens as 24-hour facility