The mobile outreach programme by the Healthy Mom and Baby Clinic (HMBC), will resume its visits to community crèches and early childhood development (ECD) centres this month, following an extended hiatus, owing to the COVID-19 health pandemic.
Working in close collaboration with the Department of Health and funded by Jeffreys Bay Wind Farm, the spokesperson at HMBC confirmed that outreach to Jeffreys Bay areas would commence to all community crèches in the targeted area, with plans to later extend the services to additional communities in the future.
“The crèche visits will start again to ensure vaccinations are up to date and evaluate the general health of children. In the crèches we often find children who are never or seldom taken to general health systems. It is therefore especially important for us to visit these centres,” said Lynette van Onselen, director of the Healthy Mom and Baby Clinic.
She further said the impact of COVID-19 on local community crèches had been devastating, with attendance reducing drastically.
Van Onselen said, in many cases, these centres had less than 25% of the original attendance, which had resulted in a concern for both the impact on young children’s health as well as safety.
Responding to this situation, a joint venture between the HMBC mobile clinic and the Department of Health, was launched to manage home checks.
Van Onselen said the primary purpose of the mobile clinic was to ensure that vaccines were kept up to date, as well as to examine the general nutritional status and deal with social difficulties, which had been exacerbated by the escalation of unemployment.
“We are now able to provide more in-depth health assessments, as we have a volunteer occupational therapist, who assists with evaluation and management of children with developmental issues, identified at these visits,” said Van Onselen.
She said the funding from Jeffreys Bay Wind Farm supported the mobile clinic’s operational costs, the employment of a nurse assistant and the appointment of a full-time professional nurse.
The HMBC was founded in 2002, due to an overwhelming need in the community for a specialised clinic that focused on improving the health of mothers and children.
The clinic helps thousands of patients each year, having assisted close to 100 000 patients since its inception.
This non-profit organisation is committed to delivering compassionate professional medical care to the most vulnerable and underprivileged women of the Jeffreys Bay community, in partnership with the Department of Health and its various financial donors.
Tsholofelo Moote, economic development officer for the Jeffreys Bay Wind Farm, which funded this project as part of its socioeconomic development programme, said, “We are incredibly pleased that the HMBC’s mobile unit has been able to resume its visits to crèches and ECD centres and we continue to believe in the incredibly important role that it plays within our communities.
“We are honoured to have been able to assist in making their services available to communities in and around areas in Jeffreys Bay.”
