Company Announcement - According to annual figures just in – which reflect a 75% increase in the number of patients served over the past year – Imperial’s Unjani Clinics project is an unmitigated success. The concept of these nurse-owned and operated community clinics was launched in 2010, with the aim of alleviating congestion in South Africa’s stretched and under resourced public healthcare system. Today there are 16 Unjani Clinics serving communities in and around Gauteng, and successfully relieving the strain on state facilities. A further two clinics are due to open this month.

In addition to providing an affordable and accessible primary healthcare service for communities in need, Unjani Clinics are empowering black women by creating entrepreneurial opportunities for professional nurses. Further employment opportunities are created due to the need for administration support staff at each clinic, as well as cleaners and other service providers.

Elaborating on the increasingly important role that the clinics are playing, Lynda Toussaint, CEO of the Unjani Clinics Non-Profit Company, reveals that during 2014, the six Unjani Clinics in operation served 18 592 patients. “This year, a further 10 clinics have been added to the network, and in the year to the end of June 2015, they served 32 556 patients. In the month of June alone, we saw 5 262 patients,” she reports. “We also successfully opened our 16th clinic, in Mogogelo, Hammanskraal, just before the year closed. Our busiest clinic in June was Tembisa, which saw 660 patients.

“There is a dire need for quality primary healthcare in communities and the patient support at the clinics in June and throughout the past year is indicative of that. What is really needed now are more Unjani Clinics,” Toussaint stresses. She says that plans are already underway for the implementation of the next 9 clinics, which will take the network to 25 clinics by June 2016; to date, 250 nurses have expressed interest in the project, and are eager to follow in the footsteps of Unjani Clinic nurse owners like the outstanding Sister Siza Nkosi, who runs the top-performing Tembisa clinic. “She provides one-on-one care, has a motherly touch and is palliative care trained. During the months of May to July, when there is a seasonal increase in illnesses, Sister Nkosi worked extra-long hours to ensure that all her patients were treated. In her clinic’s first month (September 2014) of operation, she only saw 34 patients, then 135 the following month, and in June, 660 patients.”

While Unjani Clinic’s latest figures speak for themselves, Sister Siza Nkosi perfectly sums up the impact that this project is having on communities and entrepreneurial black women: “I always wanted to have my own business, and thanks to Unjani, this became possible. I am here to make a difference in Tembisa. I love what I do and I will continue to help people in my community and provide quality service. Simple things can make a real difference when they are done in an extraordinary way,” concludes the nurse who has become known as “the Angel of Tembisa”.