Ikhwezi Community Day Centre reopens
30 January 2020
The City of Cape Town's Health Department reopened the Ikhwezi Community Day Centre to the community earlier today after seven months of intensive work. The centre was damaged extensively in May last year following an arson attack which forced its closure. It once again offers a full basket of services to surrounding residents. Read more below:
'We are proud to once again be able to offer residents a world-class health service at this facility. Services are fully integrated and electronic appointments for all services will commence within a couple of weeks,' said the City of Cape Town's Mayoral Committee Member for Community Services and Health, Councillor Zahid Badroodien.
In May last year, an arson attack devastated the facility and residents bore the brunt of its closure.
'The total cost the department has incurred to date is R8,1 million of which insurance paid R4,9 million. The rest of the budget had to come from other deserving capital projects which had to be placed on hold. The medicines and vaccines stored in the pharmacy alone were worth R1 million, but the cost of this irrational act goes well beyond the budget that was spent,' said Councillor Badroodien.
This year, other than painting the facility, the plan for Ikhwezi was to extend the reception area, the staff room and add extra toilets for clients and staff. That will no longer happen.
'Clients who abandoned their treatment due to the inconvenience of having to visit another facility will pay the price of disease progression; children who did not receive immunisation at their due dates are vulnerable to outbreaks of disease. We’ll never know how many unwanted pregnancies will result from family planning methods that were not given in time or the extent of the spread of disease because it was not diagnosed in time,' said Councillor Badroodien.
Ikhwezi is one of the biggest City health facility, with on average 500 patients seen to per day and it also has the biggest cohort of patients on Anti-Retroviral Treatment (5 238) and treats approximately 500 clients for Tuberculosis per year.
Councillor Badroodien paid tribute to staff, a private doctor who took it upon herself to see all HIV positive children free of charge and others who had gone beyond the call of duty to ensure service delivery.
'The staff at the nearby Nomzamo Community Day Centre did all they could to help mitigate the negative impact on residents, the City Health maintenance team fast-tracked the repairs, the sub-district office worked tirelessly to make sure the facility was ready to open today while team Ikhwezi returned with a deep renewed commitment to serve this community and uphold the core values of the City and the Health Department.
'Our greatest concern is that the perpetrators of this absurd act of vandalism have not been revealed and have gone unpunished. We continue to appeal to the law-abiding local residents to be vigilant and help the City look after their health facility. I would like to encourage residents to be our eyes and ears and to take ownership of these facilities, which ultimately belong to them, ' added Councillor Badroodien.
A R50 000 reward is being offered for information that will lead to the arrest and successful conviction of those responsible for the arson attack. Anyone with information can call their nearest police station or 10111.
End
Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
