Lungani Zungu
The Health MEC in Limpopo, Dr Phophi Ramathuba, has leapt ahead in the provincial vaccine race, with her province leading the way with the Covid-19 jab rollout.
Dr Ramathuba and her team have so far vaccinated 66% of over 60s in Limpopo, while the national average stands at roughly 28%.
Dr Ramathuba’s achievement is especially remarkable considering that Limpopo is one of the country’s poorest regions, and its health services have limited resources.
The 48-year-old mother of two was raised in Limpopo, but later went to Gauteng to pursue her dream of studying medicine at Medunsa, now Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University.
After completing her degree, she went back home to Limpopo in 2000 to plough back her medical skills.
Fifteen years later, in 2015, the ANC in Limpopo appointed her MEC for Health, a position she excelled in even before Covid-19 swept the nation last year.
While steadily rising through the ranks, Dr Ramathuba continued studying, and later obtained her qualification in Advanced Health Management from Manchester Business School in the UK.
She has outperformed Gauteng, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal in the vaccination rollout.
Many citizens, including the elderly in Limpopo, have received at least one jab.
From the outset, her strategy has been to target the region’s rural communities.
Her department deployed 9,000 community healthcare workers armed with smartphones to conduct door-to-door registration campaigns in these areas.
“When we are given a task by national [government], we put a lot of effort into the planning, because we know our material conditions are completely different from other provinces which have their own metros and urban areas [and] we are predominantly rural,” Dr Ramathuba told eNCA.
By Saturday, Limpopo had the second-lowest confirmed cases at 69,129, after the Northern Cape with 56,370.
The province has recorded a total of only 2,517 deaths, as of Saturday.
Gauteng, which has twice the population of Limpopo, tops the list with 545,262 active cases and 12,079 deaths.
Image source: @CapricornFM
