Inkosi BA Ntuli kanye nezi Nduna
KwaZulu-Natal Premier – Dr Zweli Mkhize
Ward 9 Councilor; T Dladla
UThungulu Health District Manager; Mr Zungu
Clinic Operational Manager; Sr NJ Dladla
Abasebenzi boMnyango emazingeni ahlukene
Malunga omphakathi ahloniphekile
Before I dwell on the matter that brought us here today, I first would like to congratulate and pledge support to all the 126 young men that were screened last week and are getting circumcised today. It is indeed a great pleasure to note that you are positively responding to our Majesty’s call to undergo Medical Male Circumcision as a means to combat the spread of HIV and AIDS. Keep up the good work. We wish to see all men enlisting without exception.
Honourable Premier, today we are very elated to present to the people of Nkandla Municipality particularly those residing at Ward 9, this new Dinuntuli Clinic that we built at the cost of R10 387.000.
The structure consists of:
- 5 x consulting rooms
- 1x delivery room
- 1x community room
- 1x treatment room
- 1x counseling room
- 1x staff room
- 4x staff residence accommodating 4 nurses.
As government we are pleased that this facility will impact positively of the health status of all the people and also lessen work load that was imposed on Mfongosi clinic.
With our Premier’s guidance, surely we are making progress on our undertaking of bringing services closer to where the people are. Development will eventually get to all the corners and valleys of our land.
Those that stand to benefit today are the communities of:
- Samungu
- Nkomeziphansi
- Nhloshane
- Shobalenyathi
- Dina
- Mdombolo
- Mayese
We are also mindful of those that are still out of reach - distance wise and as before, our Mobile service team is still available for them in the areas of:
- Sikhwane and
- Ekuthokozeni
We also undertake to continue offering doctor’s visits in the area once a month. Today as we present this beautiful clinic to you I want us to recall that on presenting His 2011 State of the Nation Address, our President; Honourable Jacob Zuma said that our country must do more to improve the health status of the women folk:
‘Given our emphasis on women’s health, we will broaden the scope of reproductive health rights and provide services related to amongst others, contraception, sexually transmitted infections, teenage pregnancy and sanitary towels for the indigent.’
Programme director, what the President says is more relevant to this area considering that its gender profile indicates that females constitute 54, 3% of the population and that 90% of that population is unemployed.
What we offer as the Department of Health in facility is therefore more skewed to favour women and children in the range of healthcare package that amongst other things entails:
- Child’s health
- Immunisation
- Women’s reproductive health
- Family planning
- Cervical cancer screening
- Antenatal care services
- Post natal care
- Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission (PMTCT)
- TB treatment and management
- Oral health care services
- HIV Counseling and Testing (HCT)
- Communicable Disease Control
We are also pleased that the KZN Department of Agriculture through the Flagship Programme is fully involved here in Ward 9 assisting in:
- Establishment of 1500 household gardens
- Distributing 300 seed packs as well as 4500 seed scoops
- Establishing nine community gardens even though the community is still having challenges of water scarcity and lack of fencing.
We thus appeal to abomama to make use of this assistance offered as most households in this area are women led since men are compelled to leave their families to go to the cities to seek employment.
Whilst we applaud the good initiatives and progress being made on the ground, we also want to caution against the alarming rate of Teenage pregnancy being observed in schools across the province. Inkandla is no exception in this regard as our reports show that last year at:
- Ngono High School 8 girls fell pregnant, and at
- Bizimali High School they had 45 girls falling pregnant
We would like uNdabezitha and everyone here to know that it becomes very difficult for a girl who has given birth to go back to school. If we say no to teenage pregnancy it is because we do not want our girls to be condemned to a life of illiteracy, poverty and unemployment. Our society cannot and should not be living and depending on child social grants.
Lastly, we ask you to make use of the opportunities offered by this progressive government. Of particular importance is that as a Department of Health we have now started recruitment for our Nurse Training 2011/12 programme. Just for Uthungulu District we will be recruiting more than 200 people to be trained as nurses. All the student nurses for this District will be trained here at Uthungulu in the following institutions:
- Ngwelezane Hospital,
- Nkandla Hospital,
- Mbongolwane Hospital and
- Eshowe Hospital
Ndabezitha, I am also tasked to introduce to you our Honourable Premier, Dr Zweli Mkhize, uKhabazela.
Source: KwaZulu-Natal Health
