Rural Areas Need These Health Workers. So Does The Nhi
This month the Johannesburg Labour Court ruled that community health workers employed by the government must be deemed permanent, rather than fixed-term contract employees.
The decision affects about 50 000 people who have been on recurring contracts without job security and benefits.
In the rural Eastern Cape, these workers are known as nomakhayas, providing essential healthcare in hard-to-reach areas where clinics are scarce.
Their work blends home-based healthcare and local knowledge, helping monitor chronic conditions and supporting maternal and child health.
Many work for nonprofits, such as Bulungula Incubator. Sigrid Kite-Banks writes they are just what the National Health Insurance NHI needs to succeed.
In todaysnewsletter ,Mia Malan explains why community health workers are crucial to the success of the NHI. Sign up today .
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In deep rural Eastern Cape, where clinics are far and roads are treacherous, healthcare comes not in standard medical facilities but through the quiet resilience of community health workers CHWs, or oNomakhaya isiXhosa for home-carers, as they are affectionately called.
One such nomakhaya is 30-year-old Asonwabisa Sipatana, whose work intertwines with her familys legacy of healing.
Asonwabisas grandmother, Nozolile Zintoyinto, is a respected sangoma in the village of Nqileni in the Eastern Cape. At 93, she has spent over six decades as a spiritual and physical healer. Today, Zintoyinto watches her granddaughter carry this legacy forward in her role as a nomakhaya.