Join the “Chiawelo Community Practice” FB Group and get a window into our work with CHWs posts and FB Live broadcasts.
Chiawelo Community Practice is a Family Medicine and Community-Oriented Primary Care (COPC) model for National Health Insurance. The Department of Family Medicine in Johannesburg has set up CCP, as a small unit in Chiawelo CHC. It is currently focused on managing a registered population of 15934 people in the Soweto half of Ward 11 in the area of Chiawelo. Dr S. Moosa, a family physician supervises CCP with a community service doctor and clinical associate. The team integrate all elements of care at the CHC into patient-centred family practice with good record-keeping systems and integrated chronic care. Interns rotate through CCP to assist. There are many Wits students rotating through CCP around learning about Community-Oriented Primary Care.
There are 16 community health workers (CHWs) who have been deployed into the community going door-to-door screening families, referring patients, arranging appointment visits to the clinic and following up problems. The clinic team refer patients to CHWs for follow up in a close relationship. CHWs have also mapped the communtiy for assets and helped build a relationship with all stakeholders. The team engage regularly with councillor, ward committee, organisations, schools, churches, traditional healers etc. to develop a community diagnosis with strong community ownership of CCP. All these have allowed us to develop good health promotion strategies, including four daily walking clubs with ±200 elderly assisted in exercise and social support. There has also been outreach to schools and youth groups in response to community concerns around drug abuse and teenage pregnancies. It is a work in progress.
The MEC for Health in Gauteng wanted this to be expanded across Gauteng. There are now 100+ CHWs covering 150 000 people in Wards 11,12,15,16 & 19. This group is actively building this model (with some difficulty due to staff resistance). They are achieving great things. We will be using this group to share what we do on a regular basis – not only between CHWs and community but also for the whole world to see. It is going to be real treat! A real window into community practice in a South African township.
