Etafeni Day Care Centre Trust’s home and community-based care (HCBC) services consist of interventions that focus on wellness, health promotion, prevention of ill health and self-management support to empower clients to take care of their health at home.
The HCBC programme consists of 44 community healthcare workers (CHWs) and 4 CHW supervisors and 3 CHW coordinators who all work in Barcelona, Kanana, New Rest and Gugulethu SP.
The aim of the programme is to re-orientate health services from only reacting when people become ill enough to present themselves for care, to proactively looking at a whole community and addressing the most important challenges together with community members. This approach means promoting health and carrying out more preventative interventions at the household and community level, as well as in health facilities. The objectives of the programme are:
- To promote health and prevent illnesses and disability
- To mobilise around community needs
- To screen everyone in a designated geographic area (service node) and refer appropriately to existing services
- To provide psychosocial support and refer appropriately
- To provide education and advice on minor health problems
- To support those who have long-term conditions, particularly with correct medicine usage
- To support wellness, including health programmes in schools and ECD centres
- To support a continuum of care (for example, by signposting people to information about local health and care services and how to access them)
