About us

The Mitchells Plain CHC is located at 1^st Avenue, Eastridge, opposite the bus terminus and town centre.

You can use the map below to find your way to our centre.

Our clinic services a population of approximately 1.2 million people with an average unemployment rate in the vicinity of 24.2%. With 170 staff members, the number of patients we see and treat per month is approximately 46 000.

The centre was opened on 1 July 1986 and the Emergency Room was opened on 1 January 1993. Our clinic is one of 9 healthcare facilities within the Mitchells Plain sub-district but is the only one providing the comprehensive package of primary healthcare (PHC) that we do.

More about the people we serve

The estimated population size of the greater Mitchells Plain area stands at 1.2 million. The people and communities we serve have often experienced difficult circumstances and lacked access to basic services and education:

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Map of the catchment area

Putting the community first

Mitchells Plain CHC has actively been involved the Eastridge health committee in the daily operations of the clinic.

It’s also the home of several pilot projects, including:

• patient-centred care,
• a ministerial complaints hotline, and
• primary healthcare electronic information management system (PHCIS). 

PHCIS captures all patients’ personal information, contact numbers, next-of-kin details, employment information, and is used to make appointments. It’s linked to the patient administration system, Clinicom, and has the capacity to be expanded to capture health information and electronic patient records, although that aspect of PHCIS isn’t being utilised at present.

A previous PHCIS project, the Lean Management System, won the Premier’s Excellence Award when it was established in 2007. The system was implemented at the reception and pharmacy area, and grouped folder numbers together for easier retrieval of patients’ records and reduction in waiting time. Following this achievement, and based on experiences at MPCHC, the program was rolled out to other facilities. 

We’re always trying our best to deal with and overcome barriers, including:

• having to cope with verbal abuse and even physical violence directed against staff members,
• managing the large numbers of clients and the high disease burden without burning out, and
• vandalism of facility by clients and community.

Our achievements

We’ve successfully restructured the Chronic Diseases of Lifestyle (CDL) Club, which makes up the majority of patients seen on a daily basis at the facility. CDLs are those lifelong conditions requiring long-term treatment that essentially have their origin largely in relation to factors representing the patient’s life experience (history) and current influences on the health of the patient. These are complex issues and include:

• dietary habits,
• substance use and abuse,
• lack of physical exercise,
• excessive stress,
• environmental factors, and
• socio-economic issues (everything that impacts on the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health of the individual).

Many of the resulting conditions are in fact fully preventable, but some lifestyle factors are deeply- embedded aspects of the community. The CDL was restructured so that these patients are no longer required to wait for long periods of time to get medication when they have their clinic visits.

Instead, they’re now given their medication as a part of their visit, which has dramatically improved the patient experience and reduced waiting time.

Our promise to you

We’re always looking for more opportunities to introduce other efficiencies to the organisational structure of the CHC, to improve the level of service that we deliver to the community, and to make healthcare Better Together - today, tomorrow and in the future.

Our management team

Our team at Mitchells Plain CHC

Meet our dedicated team of healthcare workers committed to making your experience at Mitchells Plain CHC one that provides you with the best care possible, while acknowledging your dignity, culture, values, beliefs and human rights.