The Mobile Health Clinics (MHC) Foundation has launched a youth-focused campaign titled “Your Health, Your Choice, Your Power” in a bid to support sexual health and informed decision-making among TVET students in poor areas.
Partnering with pharmaceutical company Bayer SA, the nonprofit organisation aims to reach thousands of students in Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg and Tshwane by providing sexual and reproductive health services, as well as vision, dental and hearing screenings via mobile clinics.
According to Dr Rosy Ndhlovu, vice-chair and founding member of MHC, the foundation decided on the programme after seeing that a lot of teenagers were getting pregnant.
“Just to give you a sense of some of these numbers, we know that as of last year, we had numbers such as 365 students, or young girls rather, that were [getting] pregnant daily in SA,” she said.
Just to give you a sense of some of these numbers, we know that as of last year, we had numbers such as 365 students, or young girls rather, that were [getting] pregnant daily in SA
— Rosy Ndhlovu
“Of those 365 girls, 13% of them are younger than 18.”
Ndhlovu said another scary revelation was that young people between the ages of 15 and 24 make up almost a third of new HIV infections.
The programme started in May and will reach at least 2,000 TVET college students at 10 campuses in Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg and Tshwane. MHC will spend a month on each campus.
“We’re aiming to service between 2,000 and 3,000 students for the rest of this year. We’ll be providing peer education and health promotion on campuses daily,” Ndhlovu said.
MHC has two mobile clinics that specialise in providing sexual and reproductive healthcare services, while the other clinic will provide eye, dental and hearing screening.
MHC began in 2019 with the intention of providing healthcare services to non-fee schools in poor areas. They are still doing that but have now expanded their reach to TVET colleges that lack healthcare facilities.
We saw that there’s a really important need to extend these services to young people on campus as they transition from school into young adulthood and a sort of independent life
— Ndhlovu
“We’ve been running this programme for about four years now,” Ndhlovu said. “We saw that there’s a really important need to extend these services to young people on campus as they transition from school into young adulthood and a sort of independent life.”
Jorge Levinson, who works for Bayer SA’s Sub-Saharan Africa pharmaceutical division, said the company’s work with MHC was rooted in removing barriers to access to life-saving medication, with healthcare access remaining one of the most urgent challenges for young people today, especially for young women.
“Through this programme, we are not only empowering students with information and services, but we are also contributing to our global commitment to enable 100-million women and girls to access modern contraception information and services by 2030,” Levinson said.
Ndhlovu said one of the challenges facing MHC is “finding young clinicians that have the energy and the enthusiasm to engage with young people and meet them where they are. I think it’s a standing challenge with any programme that looks at youth. They want to be able to speak to someone who is close to their age and engage with them”.
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