WeeklySA_AdminEXEMPLARY: Churches and traditional leaders were brought on board
By Frank Maponya
Limpopo is one of the poorest provinces in South Africa.
But it is regarded as a frontrunner in terms of its Covid-19 vaccinations in the country. Despite the province suffering from a chronic lack of resources, particularly in the public health sector, Limpopo has been vaccinating its citizens at the fastest rate in the country. More than 80 percent of the province’s population live in rural areas but the provincial department of health has managed to vaccinate more people than any other province. The province’s health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba has attributed the success in outpacing other provinces in terms of vaccinations to the fact that they were working together with churches and traditional leaders to make sure that the message was sent across to community members to go and get the jabs. The province is home to two powerful churches, the Zion Christian Church (ZCC) as well as the St Engenas Church. Recently, leaders of both churches, Bishop Barnabas Lekganyane of the ZCC and his St Engenas counterpart Bishop Joseph Lekganyane were seen in the frontline taking the jabs at the Pietersburg Hospital. This was also done in order to encourage their followers to take the issue of vaccinations serious. Ramathuba said traditional leaders also played a pivotal role in encouraging their subjects to go and register to take the jabs.
“We are aware that our people have strong beliefs in their churches and the leaders of those churches, including their traditional leaders, hence we took the initiative to rope in those influential leaders,” Ramathuba said.
“Our people have so much confidence in their leaders, be they spiritual or traditional, more than they have in us as politicians and even health professionals. They don’t trust their doctors more than they would trust their traditional leadership,” she added.
According to Ramathuba, when they are given a task by the national government, they put a lot of effort into planning “because we know that our material conditions are completely different from other provinces which have their own metros and urban areas while we are predominantly rural.”
Ramathuba said she knew that most areas in the province had challenges in terms of network connectivity and that the majority of senior citizens were not familiar with the internet, let alone having smart phones.
“To deal with these issues, our department had to veer away from the national self-registration plan which placed the responsibility on individuals to register on the EVDS to secure a vaccination appointment. Instead, we ordered all hospitals, clinics and community healthcare centres to assist all elderly residents with registering on the EVDS,” she explained.
But part of the plan which also worked out the best, Ramathuba said, was to activate more than 9 000 community healthcare workers equipped with smartphones to conduct door-to-door registration campaigns in far-flung villages.
“We allocated the community healthcare workers with Android phones and loaded them with data in order for them to be able to do their job with ease,” she said, adding that they had been using them even prior to Covid-19, doing door-to-door campaigns on TB screenings, including screenings for HIV and Aids.
“These are home-based carers who are supporting patients. They know the environment in which they work. They know the villages and their wards,” the MEC said.
But registering on the EVDS is just one component of the vaccine roll-out and Ramathuba said getting Limpopo residents to the sites on the day of the vaccination was an equally important consideration for the province. To combat the vaccine hesitancy, the department turned to the churches and traditional leaders to help allay any fears in communities.
