Cape Town - In a bid to create more dedicated spaces for youth in the city, the City of Cape Town’s Community Services and Health Directorate unveiled a new youth clinic in Belhar last weekend.
The clinic is a first of its kind in the metropole for the local municipality and will offer local youth and those living in surrounding areas various youth-specific health initiatives driven by City Health, mimicking the department’s first project piloted in Khayelitsha nearly 20 years ago.
The City of Cape Town’s Health Department initiated youth clinics in Site B and Site C in Khayelitsha in the early 2000s in response to young people’s reluctance to visit clinics where they might run into relatives or community members.
Community service and health mayoral committee member Patricia van der Ross said the clinic was one of the City’s progressive initiatives that would provide youth-centric services in a safe environment designed for young people.
Ross said: “City Health has made huge strides in acknowledging and working to meet the health needs of our youth, as we have seen this dedicated service take hold in all of our facilities.
“Over time, we hope to add dedicated spaces for youth health in every area, to encourage more young people to seek help and guidance on health issues affecting them.”
“An important part of self-care is knowing your health status and making informed decisions, so I want to urge our youth to fully exploit these opportunities and spaces that have been established for them.”
The City’s youth-focused clinic will operate on Friday afternoons from 2pm to 4pm to start, with the possibility of extending its working hours.
Ross said another motivating factor for the City to build such a clinic was out of concern for the youth who were missing out on services due to competing priorities such as school or work.
She said: “The City received ongoing support for many years from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors without Borders). Current partners at these facilities are the Anova Apace project and New loveLife Trust.”
Services that will be offered to the youth at the clinic will include family planning, STI assessment and treatment, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), post–exposure prophylaxis (PEP), general HIV care, and TB screening and treatment for youth from 12 to 24 years old.
The clinic will also support youth on minor ailments, and provide basic antenatal care services until 36 weeks of pregnancy.
According to the City, each of its sub-districts has a Youth Health Champion tasked with developing plans to understand the challenges affecting youth health care, improve compassion and encourage non-judgemental attitudes from staff towards young people.
“The satellite Youth Clinic in Belhar will further progress City Health’s continuous goal of providing a safe place for youth to receive health care,” the City said.
Belhar councillor Willie Jaftha said: “The idea was to get youth into the clinic but also to provide a safe space. The vision is to have this clinic be a transversal hub for the St Vincent community. With time, we want to involve other City departments like Recreation and Parks and the Library Service and turn this space into a fully-fledged youth centre.”
“We encourage our community at large to utilise the space and help us turn it into a model of what can be, for other areas,” Jaftha said.