Business / Companies
Cimas Fourth Street Clinic treats thousands each month
17 Sep 2015 at 13:37hrs | Views
Cimas Fourth Street Clinic
The need for primary healthcare clinics in Harare seems evident from the number of people making use of the Cimas Fourth Street Clinic, where an average of 7 000 people are currently attended to each month.
The clinic, which started operating in December last year, is open 24 hours a day. Doctors at the clinic see an average of 250 patients every day. In January, the first full month that it was operational, 2 729 patients were seen. Each month the numbers have grown.
Presumably the services provided at the clinic and other similar private clinics must have reduced some of the pressure on public health institutions, where long queues have tended to be common.
The clinic is well staffed. It has a staff complement of 14 doctors and 12 nurses, who work in shifts, a sister-in-charge, four nurse aides, seven registry clerks, five pharmacists and five dispensary assistants, an accounts clerk and three general hands, making 52 members of staff altogether.
Every patient is seen by a doctor. There are four doctors on duty at any given time between 10am and 6pm. At most other times there are three doctors, with the number reducing to two in the late evening and one between 11pm and 7am the next morning.
When the clinic first opened there were only two consulting rooms. However, as the number of patients increased, the number of consulting rooms was increased first to three and then to the present four, which is the maximum number of consulting rooms the building can accommodate.
The services offered include treatment for hypertension, diabetes, upper respiratory tract infections, HIV/AIDS, asthma and any other illness, as well as rapid HIV testing and counselling.
Priority is based on a system of triaging that determines those that need to be seen first according to the severity of their illness.
Cimas Healthcare Division managing director Zvita Mutambirwa says sick children are given particular priority, especially if they are in distress.
Otherwise, everybody is treated equally, she said, adding that, while some people have wanted to be given priority on the basis of their medical aid package, the clinic has insisted that the only basis for priority is a person's medical condition..
"Priority is given on the basis of how sick the patient is, not how much he or she pays for a medical aid package," she said.
She said a similar policy was followed by all Cimas clinics.
"The first thing a patient does, after being attended to at reception, is to go to the nurses, who assesses the condition of the patient, including the patient's temperature, blood pressure, heart rate and breathing pattern. If the patient's condition is deemed serious, he or she does not have to wait in a queue but is given priority to see the next available doctor, particularly if the patient is a child, but even if he or she is an adult," Mrs Mutambirwa said.
She said that while the majority of patients are members of Cimas , the clinic is open to those on other medical aids as well as cash paying patients.
The Cimas Fourth Street Clinic is one of four Cimas clinics in Harare and nine nationwide. It is the only Cimas clinic that is open 24 hours a day. Although it is open all day and all night, it limits the services it provides to primary healthcare services. It does not have casualty facilities.
Although the number of people visiting the clinic in the early hours of the morning is small, there are some who do. On average about 30 patients are attended to during the night.
"Perhaps someone is just not feeling well in the night or is in unbearable pain and wants to be seen. Parents come in with babies who are running a high temperature. Some people come in in the early hours of the morning wanting an HIV test, presumably fearing they may have been exposed to the virus," Mrs Mutambirwa said.
She said 10 of the clinic's nurses have been trained to provide HIV counselling. Another two were trained in the provision of other counselling services. She said that, apart from HIV counselling, the commonest form of counselling requested was for psycho-social issues.
"Perhaps during a consultation, a doctor will realise there is a problem that requires counselling. The patient will then be referred to one of the nurses that is a trained counsellor," she said.
The clinic's pharmacy is well stocked. However, it is only licensed to provide medicines prescribed at the clinic.
Having four doctors attending to patients at the same time during the day minimises patients' waiting time.
How long a patient has to wait to see a doctor depends on the number of patients there are and the amount of time each patient needs to spend with the doctor. Sometimes the wait is short. On other occasions, particularly on Monday mornings, which are generally the busiest days, a patient might have to wait longer to see a doctor.
"We have done our best to reduce waiting time at the clinic by increasing the number of consultation rooms and the number of doctors. This ensures that several people are attended to at the same time and reduces the patients' waiting time," Mrs Mutambirwa said.
The clinic, which started operating in December last year, is open 24 hours a day. Doctors at the clinic see an average of 250 patients every day. In January, the first full month that it was operational, 2 729 patients were seen. Each month the numbers have grown.
Presumably the services provided at the clinic and other similar private clinics must have reduced some of the pressure on public health institutions, where long queues have tended to be common.
The clinic is well staffed. It has a staff complement of 14 doctors and 12 nurses, who work in shifts, a sister-in-charge, four nurse aides, seven registry clerks, five pharmacists and five dispensary assistants, an accounts clerk and three general hands, making 52 members of staff altogether.
Every patient is seen by a doctor. There are four doctors on duty at any given time between 10am and 6pm. At most other times there are three doctors, with the number reducing to two in the late evening and one between 11pm and 7am the next morning.
When the clinic first opened there were only two consulting rooms. However, as the number of patients increased, the number of consulting rooms was increased first to three and then to the present four, which is the maximum number of consulting rooms the building can accommodate.
The services offered include treatment for hypertension, diabetes, upper respiratory tract infections, HIV/AIDS, asthma and any other illness, as well as rapid HIV testing and counselling.
Priority is based on a system of triaging that determines those that need to be seen first according to the severity of their illness.
Cimas Healthcare Division managing director Zvita Mutambirwa says sick children are given particular priority, especially if they are in distress.
Otherwise, everybody is treated equally, she said, adding that, while some people have wanted to be given priority on the basis of their medical aid package, the clinic has insisted that the only basis for priority is a person's medical condition..
"Priority is given on the basis of how sick the patient is, not how much he or she pays for a medical aid package," she said.
She said a similar policy was followed by all Cimas clinics.
"The first thing a patient does, after being attended to at reception, is to go to the nurses, who assesses the condition of the patient, including the patient's temperature, blood pressure, heart rate and breathing pattern. If the patient's condition is deemed serious, he or she does not have to wait in a queue but is given priority to see the next available doctor, particularly if the patient is a child, but even if he or she is an adult," Mrs Mutambirwa said.
She said that while the majority of patients are members of Cimas , the clinic is open to those on other medical aids as well as cash paying patients.
The Cimas Fourth Street Clinic is one of four Cimas clinics in Harare and nine nationwide. It is the only Cimas clinic that is open 24 hours a day. Although it is open all day and all night, it limits the services it provides to primary healthcare services. It does not have casualty facilities.
Although the number of people visiting the clinic in the early hours of the morning is small, there are some who do. On average about 30 patients are attended to during the night.
"Perhaps someone is just not feeling well in the night or is in unbearable pain and wants to be seen. Parents come in with babies who are running a high temperature. Some people come in in the early hours of the morning wanting an HIV test, presumably fearing they may have been exposed to the virus," Mrs Mutambirwa said.
She said 10 of the clinic's nurses have been trained to provide HIV counselling. Another two were trained in the provision of other counselling services. She said that, apart from HIV counselling, the commonest form of counselling requested was for psycho-social issues.
"Perhaps during a consultation, a doctor will realise there is a problem that requires counselling. The patient will then be referred to one of the nurses that is a trained counsellor," she said.
The clinic's pharmacy is well stocked. However, it is only licensed to provide medicines prescribed at the clinic.
Having four doctors attending to patients at the same time during the day minimises patients' waiting time.
How long a patient has to wait to see a doctor depends on the number of patients there are and the amount of time each patient needs to spend with the doctor. Sometimes the wait is short. On other occasions, particularly on Monday mornings, which are generally the busiest days, a patient might have to wait longer to see a doctor.
"We have done our best to reduce waiting time at the clinic by increasing the number of consultation rooms and the number of doctors. This ensures that several people are attended to at the same time and reduces the patients' waiting time," Mrs Mutambirwa said.
Source - MHPR
