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Western Cape Ministers of Health and Education, Dr Nomafrench Mbombo and Debbie Schäfer paid a visit to a School Wellness mobile bus at Yomelela Primary School in Khayelitsha on Tuesday.
According to the departments of Health, and Education, this flagship project of the province was rolled out in 2014 as a transversal strategy, putting life into the integrated school health programme.
To date, the project has provided over 400 000 learners with access to primary health services at over 3000 schools in the province.
Mbombo said the reason for this project was because learners had no time to go to clinics when they were sick because their parents were working.
She said they decided to bring health services to the learners so they can go through screenings and be diagnosed at an early age.
“The health of the learners comes first, while (at the same time) they are busy with education,” said Mbombo.
She said this also helps cut down the daily influx to community clinics.
Schäfer said they decided to bring the bus to learners so they can be checked for any illnesses and to help parents and let learners continue learning.
She said no child should go to school without having had the necessary health screenings.
School principal Sbongiseni Dlaku said what the two departments are doing is responding to service delivery.
He said the bus helps the school a lot because they we also facing challenges.
“Absenteeism was a big challenge for us because learners would be absent(from school, having to go) to a clinic, but now that is not happening,” he said.
He said before learners would just fall sick and because they are at school they would be stuck with them not knowing what to do.
Dlaku said he is thankful because their lives as teachers have been made easy.
