India inspires local doctor to target SA’s poorer patients
Nthabiseng Legoete started Qualihealth in May, opening the first clinic in Diepsloot, but with bank funding she now has three offering affordable healthcare
Portia Lekgoto faced a dilemma: how to take her three-year-old daughter to a doctor without missing a day of work, while waiting in line at one of only two public health clinics in SA’s informal settlement of Diepsloot. She decided to take her daughter to Qualihealth, a new private clinic a friend had told her about. While she had to pay R250 for the visit, she finished the consultation by mid-morning. "I am now going to drop my daughter off at her granny with the medication we have been given, and then I will go into work," Lekgoto, 34, says. "This place, the staff are friendly and it’s nice and clean. I’ll definitely come back." People walking into a well-resourced health centre and getting immediate help is an unusual sight in poorer areas such as Diepsloot, home to about 140,000 people that was formed a year after Nelson Mandela came to power in 1994. More than 80% of SA’s population has no medical insurance and depend on a public health system that the World Health Organisation...
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