Messina Hospital hosts Cheka Impilo festival

By Bernard Chiguvare

On Friday, 24 February, the Messina Hospital once again hosted their comprehensive Cheka Impilo Health Festival. The event is aimed at enhancing the Covid-19 vaccination programme and doing HIV and Aids screening, testing and treatment initiation. During the festival, the hospital also promotes tuberculosis screening, breast- and cervical-cancer screening, prostate-cancer screening, nutrition- al-status assessment, non-communicable-diseases screening, hypertension and diabetes, and eye, nose and ear screening.

More than 500 people attended, including senior citizens, members from the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in Musina, politicians and delegates from churches around Musina town.

The event started with a 5km fun walk, soccer, netball and aerobics exercises before the free health screenings were conducted.

This was the third time Messina Hospital hosted the event. According to Mr Emmanuel Muthari, director of communications at Messina Hospital, many such events had previously been hosted by the Musina Local Municipality and Nancefield Clinic over the years, but they had had fewer activities than the one hosted last week.

Tuesday, 21 March, had been declared Human Rights Day to commemorate and honour those who fought for liberation and the rights people enjoy today. On 21 March 1960, the communities of Sharpeville and Langa townships, like their fellow compatriots across the country, embarked on a protest march against the pass laws. The apartheid police shot and killed 69 of the protesters at Sharpeville – some while they were fleeing. Many other people were killed in other parts of the country as well. The tragedy came to be known as the Sharpeville Massacre, and it exposed the apartheid government’s deliberate violation of human rights to the world. The commemoration provides the country with an opportunity to reflect on progress made in the promotion and protection of human rights.

Phalaphala’s programme manager, Ms Sharon Ravele said that, over the course of the month, they would invite many guests onto their different shows to talk about human rights. She said that, with the mandate of the SABC and a duty to educate and inform the citizens of the country, the public service broadcaster continued to play a leading role in providing informative public content that re-emphasized the importance of knowing one’s rights. “The communities in the rural areas must be informed about those rights, and also know their responsibilities,” she said.

Ravele said that the SABC would continue to be an active participant in building the nation by providing informative, educational, and entertaining content and being a public voice that would ultimately bring the citizens of the country to work together to enhance human dignity and restore human rights for all in South Africa.

“It is our duty as a broadcasting industry to strive for inclusive socio-economic development, while ensuring that we combat scourges such as racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and all related intolerances, as well as gender-based violence and femicide, which are undermining our human rights culture. It’s the duty of the radio, government and human rights organisations to educate all the people about the importance of this day,” said Ravele.