www.thevillagenews.co.za
17 June 2020
11 9
Don’t postpone your Support the sula bag check-ups due to the project Coronavirus On any day of the week the Youth Café in Zwelihle is a hive of activity. Volunteers are helping to provide meals for the needy and a group of ladies is busily sewing ‘sula bags’. The name comes from the fact that the bags provide ‘inSULAtion’ of the contents, either hot or cold. The principle is the same as the ‘wonderbox’ of the 1970s.
T
he Covid-19 pandemic has had a massive effect on the lives of everybody on earth. It is often said that “we are all in the same boat”. That is not true. We are not all in the same boat, but we are all in the same storm! We have all heard about how “life will never be the same again”, how there will be a “new normal” and how we will have to change our ways. “We have allowed this virus to take control of our lives and having this massive information overload is creating a lot of fear in people’s minds,” says Dr Paul de Flamingh. “It is almost as if we believe that Covid-19 is the only threat to our wellbeing and health. It is all everyone is talking about.”
Dr de Flamingh and the other medical specialists at the Hermanus Medical Centre in Ravenscroft Street (part of the Hermanus Mediclinic building) are concerned that patients are neglecting their health and forgetting to have their follow-up examinations for serious medical conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, breast examinations, mammograms, prostate examinations, Pap smears, colonoscopies and post-cancer check-ups, amongst others. The doctors would like to assure their patients and the rest of the public that special care is taken to keep you as safe as possible. Members of the public visiting the Medical Suites are screened in order to identify
possible cases of Covid-19 and are requested to adhere to the social distancing guidelines, as well as making sure that they are wearing a proper mask at all times while in the centre. Only the patient is allowed into the various waiting rooms, unless physical support is required. In this way the number of people in the building is managed. The following specialists practice in the Hermanus Medical Centre: Radiology, PathCare, Dr Carl de Clercq (physician), Dr Deirdre Grobbelaar (diagnostic ultrasound), Drs Marius Coetzee and Rudi van Rensburg (general surgeons), Dr Jacques Basson (urologist), Dr John du Plessis (ENT specialist) and Dr Paul de Flamingh (gynaecologist).
If used for cooking, the pot is brought to the boil and then placed in the sula bag where it works like a slow cooker and stays hot long enough to completely cook the food in the pot. It is especially suitable for stews, soups, samp, rice, curry and offal. Not only can the food not burn or start a fire, but the greatest advantage is in cost saving. Using the sula bag saves around three hours of cooking fuel, whether it be electricity, paraffin or gas – all of which also contribute to climate change. The sula bags are filled with shredded polystyrene, which provides excellent insulation, keeping the contents either hot or cold. So it’s not only a slow cooker, but a cool bag as well. Polystyrene does not get recycled because the weight to volume ratio is too low to make transport to a recycling plant economically feasible. All those little polystyrene packaging trays and take-away containers go straight to landfill. Sula bags can take polystyrene out of the waste stream. That is why Whale Coast Conservation has awarded a small grant to the Phambili Sewing Project to get this initiative off the ground and support the industrious sewers who are making
Sheraine van Wyk of WCC with Fiki Gxamesi of the Zwelihle Youth Café holding one of the nifty sula bags. PHOTO: Archie Klaas these nifty sula bags and selling them at the Youth Café to gain a small income. Everyone needs at least two bags – one for medium pots and another for large pots. Please consider donating a bag to those who cannot afford it but desperately need it. The cost of a medium sula bags is R350 and for a large bag R450. You can order your bags by contacting Fiki on 0837230492 or email gxamesif9@gmail.com. Bags are sold at the RDP centre in Zwelihle and at Big Apple Hair Design, 5 Long Street (behind PnP). This project also needs your waste (but clean) polystyrene, which can be dropped off at Pick n Pay Hermanus, Fresh Produce at the Mall or the RDP Centre in Zwelihle. Help us save energy, be good to the earth and help people! – Anina Lee
