GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) South Africa supports access to medicines, quality healthcare and the wellbeing of the communities in which it operates. In 2016, through its corporate social investment (CSI), the pharmaceutical group committed to funding four projects that aligned with its global CSI strategy, which focuses on the management and prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), the eradication of early childhood malnutrition and the provision of quality healthcare for children. GSK ensures that the projects it supports also address the psychosocial effects of illness on affected children and their families.
Prevention, management and control of NCDs
The National Development Plan 2030 envisions an accessible health system that will produce positive health outcomes for everyone and aims to increase the life expectancy of South Africans to at least 70 years. GSK is committed to helping to realise this national goal by supporting the prevention, management and control of NCDs such as obesity, hypertension and diabetes.
A GSK health survey found that 61% of South Africans are either overweight or obese – almost double the global prevalence of 30%. The occurrence of both conditions among children in South Africa is comparable to rates that were found in developed countries more than a decade ago. Weight is an important determinant of health and being overweight or obese can lead to adverse metabolic changes, including increased blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, resistance to insulin and obstructive sleep apnoea. Obesity raises the risks of coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes mellitus and many forms of cancer.
GSK has invested more than R30 million into its Prevention, Management and Control of NCDs project, run in partnership with Amref Health Africa at community and health facilities in five districts across Gauteng and Limpopo.
Core components of the project include:
- Strengthening regional health training centres to build human resources in the health sector, and particularly to address the skills gap in managing NCDs
- Developing the skills and capacity of community health and health facility-based workers
- Raising awareness about NCDs, the importance of early detection and adhering to treatment once diagnosed, and motivating for the adoption of healthier lifestyles
- Researching strategic information to inform policy, planning and practice at district and provincial management levels
- Increasing and sustaining community health workers’ involvement through accredited training.
To date, nearly three million adults and more than 100 000 youth have been reached through awareness campaigns and 877 professional health workers and 1 226 health promoters have received in-service training on NCDs.
This project has also supported the development of a five-year government strategy to inform the control, prevention and management of NCDs in Limpopo, as well as the development of a concept paper to conduct research on NCD screenings in public health facilities.
Improving children’s health and nutrition
GSK South Africa supports Save the Children South Africa (SCSA) to present Sireletsa Bana, a project that aims to, by 2019, reduce morbidity and mortality rates among children under the age
of five who live in the Free State and Limpopo. The three-year partnership commenced in 2016 and aims to help build the capacity of 1 050 frontline community and primary health workers and 900 early childhood development (ECD) practitioners, to improve the access and quality of essential health services for 22 500 children under five years old and 11 250 parents and primary caregivers.
The project includes:
- Timely treatment for children who have been identified by SCSA as vulnerable
- The provision of support to parents and caregivers in target communities, to ensure children’s improved nutrition
- The distribution of more than 10 000 English, Sepedi and Sesotho booklets and other paraphernalia to ECD and primary healthcare centres, to ensure the dissemination of information on child development
- Initiatives to encourage mothers to breastfeed, including the establishment of breastfeeding support groups
- ECD forums that educate ECD practitioners and nurses on nutritional guidelines, growth monitoring and early identification of moderate and severe acute malnutrition in young children.
To date, this project has directly benefitted 57 614 people and 226 ECD and primary health centres and has indirectly benefitted 908 053 people and 107 ECD and primary health centres.
Support for the establishment of a paediatric surgery outpatient department
Surgeons for Little Lives is a medical non-profit organisation that was launched in 2015 to provide children from disadvantaged communities with lifesaving medical interventions. The organisation is primarily run by paediatric surgeons and nurses working in public hospitals in Gauteng.
GSK South Africa was one of the primary sponsors and steering committee members of Surgeons for Little Lives’ key project: the establishment of a paediatric surgery outpatient department at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto. Previously, the outpatient facility at the hospital was a small two-roomed prefab building. One room served as a waiting area for up to 80 patients and their caregivers. The other was a consulting room, with up to eight doctors consulting patients at a time. In addition to a lack of space and privacy, there were also no ablution facilities.
Since the hospital serves children from all over southern Africa, it was also deemed necessary to construct a sleepover facility that could accommodate parents of sick children (from infants to 10 year olds), alleviating significant travel time for parents and separation anxiety for families who were already under stress. To date, the hospital has benefitted approximately 18 000 outpatients, 1 560 inpatients and their caregivers.
Fostering confidence and resilience in children with serious illnesses and disabilities
Just Footprints Foundation (JFF) and Serious Fun Children’s Network – a global community of over 30 camps and programmes – provides children and their families isolated by serious illnesses, life challenges and disabilities with an innovative and lifechanging experience that fosters confidence, independence and resilience.
JFF hosts camps for children living with cancer-related illnesses and blood disorders being treated at Chris Hani Baragwanath and Charlotte Maxeke Hospitals in Johannesburg; Steve Biko Academic and George Mukhari Hospitals in Pretoria; Red Cross Children’s Hospital, Groote Schuur and Tygerberg Hospitals in the Western Cape; and Nkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital in Durban and Greys Hospital in Pietermaritzburg, in KwaZulu-Natal. The pediatric oncology units at public hospitals in Gauteng also draw children from other provinces such as Mpumulanga, North West and Limpopo.
JFF is looking at expanding their cancer and blood disorder camp programmes to Bloemfontein in the Free State for children being treated at Universitas Hospital and to the pediatric oncology units at the Port Elizabeth Provincial Hospital and Frere Hospital in East London, in the Eastern Cape. JFF also hosts camps for children from Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal infected and affected with HIV/ Aids, intellectual and physical disabilities.
With funding support from GSK, the JFF camps aim to advance psychosocial interventions that aid clinical health interventions for the children and their families. More than 1 000 children have participated in the camps since 2016 and other outreach programmes have reached an additional 359 children and 152 volunteers.
Sustainable healthcare solutions
GSK contractually engaged its implementing partners in 2016, for three-year periods each, with the aim of providing support that would help the organisations to become self-sustainable. Both Amref and SCSA have developed their own training programmes that create independent sources of income. Surgeons for Little Lives is a complete and functional paediatric hospital, making immeasurable impact not just in Gauteng, but across the southern African region.
Business in Society Handbook, 2018
