Driving health programmes is one of government priorities

Finally Limpopo Province dreams will become reality after the Premier Mathabatha pronounced that Polokwane Local Municipality has donated a piece of land for the construction of Academic Hospital.

“The hospital will have 488 bed and already over R4 billion budget has been put aside for the construction. I am in the process of interacting with the national government to expedite the implementation of the project,’ said Mathabatha.

The announcement of the Academic Hospital will assist the province to fight pandemic such as Covid -19 and other chronic health problems. The Covid-19 pandemic has led to an unprecedented loss of human life, many people, particularly those in the informal economy, lost their jobs, and thousands were exposed to the risk of extreme poverty.

The country have seen a situation wherein breadwinners lose jobs, fall ill and die. Most of the dependents were exposed to poverty,
Mathabatha said in his speech at the Legislature ,there is no doubt that Covid-19 has presented itself as the biggest public health threat and defeating Covid-19 is therefore a task at the apex of government priority list. Vaccination is the most effective weapon to fight against Covid-19 pandemic.

“Limpopo has done fairly well when it comes to the assignment of rolling out life saving Covid-19 vaccines. The province has managed to administer 2, 9 million Covid-19 doses and this represents an adult first dose coverage of 52%,” said Mathabatha.
Further said the more pleasing news is that 68% of the population from the age of 60 and above are fully vaccinated.

“The province have expanded the vaccination program to the Primary Healthcare Centres and have 200 Primary Healthcare Centres which are offering Covid-19 vaccination on daily basis”.

Chupu stressed that the expansion of the Primary Healthcare Centres has helped to lessen the impact of Covid-19 in health facilities and the provincial economy. He also made a call on those who are not yet vaccinated to go out and take their jabs.