A partnership between Doctors Without Borders South Africa and the Eastern Cape Department of Health is promising to improve access to medicine, and the quality of healthcare in rural communities in the Eastern Cape.
The five-year partnership, officially unveiled in Butterworth on October 5, is called the Non-Communicable Disease Collaborative Project.
“The programme looks at non-communicable diseases. We are trying to target the diseases and how they are affecting the communities and see what can be done in addressing the issues with the help of the Department of Health, community leaders and activists and community-based organisations,” said Doctors Without Borders in South Africa operational representative, Camren McAravey.
The collaborative project will focus its attention on type 2 diabetes and hypertension.
McAravey said that they hoped, through the collaboration, to achieve great things in getting people access to medicines and improve the quality of healthcare in Eastern Cape rural communities.
“The history of Eastern Cape is important to us to address previous disadvantages that it might have had.
“The rurality, density of population, limited access to healthcare, and poverty are some of the things we considered,” McAravey said on why they had decided to collaborate with the provincial Department of Health.
Eastern Cape Health MEC, Nomakhosazana Meth, said that the collaborative partnership was a product of her department’s commitment to strengthen partnerships and collaborations.
“When I was entrusted to lead the Eastern Cape Department of Health, which has its fair share of challenges, we said we would strengthen partnerships and collaborations.”
“Today’s collaborative project launch is a product of that. COVID-19 showed us that when we work together we can achieve a lot. The virus took so many of our loved ones, but it also taught us invaluable lessons,” Meth said during the official launch of the collaborative project.
According to the World Health Organisation, it is estimated that without prevention 52 million people will die from non-communicable diseases by 2030.
Meanwhile, in the Eastern Cape, 44 781 people were put on antihypertensive treatment during the 2020/21 financial year, from age 18 and older, while a further 54 418 patients aged 18 and older were placed on diabetes treatment.
“The COVID-19 pandemic also escalated the importance of dealing with non-communicable diseases and co-morbidities.
“This is because hypertension and diabetes co-morbidities were the leading causes of fatalities due to COVID-19,” Meth concluded.
