A record number of patients seen during the month of September this year and a milestone of 625 000 patient consultations since the 2012 launch of the Unjani Clinics project reflect the success of this network of nurse-owned and operated community clinics.
The brainchild of Imperial Logistics, a leader in African healthcare supply chain management, the Unjani Clinics were established to take some of the load off South Africa’s stretched and under resourced public healthcare system.
In September, the network served a record 30 140 patients. “That’s an average of 580 engagements per clinic,” said Lynda Toussaint, CEO of the Unjani Clinics NPC (non-profit company). She said this record-breaking month takes the total patient engagements since the inception of the Unjani Clinics initiative to over 625 000.
Unjani is continuing its expansion into KwaZulu-Natal and will begin its roll out into the Eastern Cape in March 2019. The network currently consists of 52 operating clinics, in six of South Africa’s nine provinces. “Our short-term target is to have 100 Unjani Clinics nationally by the end of 2020,” Toussaint said.