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From the clear signage posts directing you to the pristine waiting areas inside, you would doubt that this is actually a public clinic.
The colourfully decorated interior walls are covered with informative health graphics and there is a steady movement of queues.
The majority of patients have given a huge thumbs up to the River Park Clinic in Alexandra – and rave reviews about its approach to primary healthcare.
The clinic is regarded as an exception rather than the rule.
Out of the 3 477 primary healthcare facilities across the country, River Park Clinic is one of 1 270 facilities recently accredited as having achieved the Ideal Clinic status in a revitalisation programme that has been running since 2013.
The Ideal Clinic status Realisation and Maintenance initiative was designed to improve the infrastructure and basic services at clinic level and it was meant to tie into the government’s model of the National Health Insurance (NHI).
“They’re good here. I come twice a month for either my chronic medicines or for my daughter’s immunisation and you don’t stay as long as in other clinics.
"They are faster and the nurses are friendlier. I’ve never been short of my ARV medication,” said 32-year-old mother of five Phumzile Makhe, a River Park resident.
“Before coming here I used to go to East Bank Clinic and you’d get there at 6am and leave at 4pm.”
Another mother, who asked to be referred to only as Queen, said the clinic’s mother-and-child services were far better than previous clinics she attended.
The national health department’s latest Ideal Clinic status realisation report was released last month.
Gauteng achieved the highest percentage of Ideal Clinics across the country between 2015 to 2018 with a total of 75% (281 of 372) of clinics accredited as ideal.
KwaZulu-Natal followed with 55% and Northern Cape came third with 46% clinics achieving ideal status.
This week Gauteng Premier David Makhura gave the best-performing clinics a special mention in his state of the province address, saying:
“They open on time, have good infrastructure, adequate supplies of medicines, [they’re] clean and staffed by health professionals that practise Batho Pele [People First] principles ... These clinics are ready for the rollout of the NHI.”
Speaking at River Park Clinic, Dominic Mahlangu, strategic adviser at Johannesburg’s mayoral office, said: “From the gate when you get in, you sense the atmosphere of being in the private sector.
“The approach of the city is to improve standards by giving people a good experience. From the gate you should believe that here you’ll get healed.”
On average, the clinic sees more than 3 000 patients a month and has 18 consulting rooms, offering acute care, chronic and mother-and-child services to residents of the surrounding community.
“We’re trying to benchmark most of our clinics and are building more clinics like this to offer comprehensive care for our people.
“We’re looking at things such as introducing substance-abuse rehabilitation facilities; we have opened one in Tladi and this clinic will follow suit, said Vusi Mazibuko, the city’s head of health.
“We’re trying to match what’s happening in the public sector with what’s happening in the private sector.”
Although the Ideal Clinic initiative is designed to help address historical issues, such as the patients’ negative experience of care and staff with a bad attitude, some patients interviewed during a visit to the clinic by City Press still had mixed feelings about the changes.
“The clerks at the front desk have a terrible attitude. You can’t help a patient while yapping your mouth to your colleagues and playing on your phone.
“The nurses here act as if they’re doing us a favour,” one man, who had gone to check his blood pressure, said.
A woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “If you come here on Monday or Tuesday, it’s hell. They act as if they’re doing you a favour.”
Gauteng chief director of primary healthcare Meisie Lerutla acknowledged that the province had to address staffing attitudes, among other issues.
“We have to take the customer care approach that says the customer is never wrong.
“Even though sometimes the patients provoke staff, we as professionals need to humble ourselves. Where there is a challenge, it will be addressed by the correct person in charge at that clinic,” she said.
On Gauteng achieving the highest percentage of clinics with ideal status, she said: “Our goal is to continue doing everything within our control so that when a patient comes for care in the province he or she is treated with respect.”
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