Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers gives Bisho doctors a home

Charitable organization, gift of the givers has continued its

rollout of assistance to health facilities in the Eastern Cape. In

the latest move, they've refurbished doctors accommodation

in bisu with a view to keeping medical profession professionals

in that region in tears. Suleiman is with gift of the givers. Dr

Suleman, good evening, and thank you so much for your time. Let's

talk about this accommodation that you have set up for doctors. What

purpose does it mean to play

good evening? Cathy, a compliment of the Year to you, Steven and all

the team at newsroom and all your listener viewers, we've

put up 120 bed facility at Bucha Hospital, a dedicated covid 19

facility. Now remember, the more bridge you put up, the more staff

you require. And when we were speaking to the CEO sister Puma,

she said, in all confidence that she is losing out. And we asked,

why? What happened? She says, because they don't have

respectable accommodation or decent accommodation. A lot of the

new doctors, interns come the service students come there, and

they don't last more than 2448 hours. They move to another

hospital, and at this time, when it's critical that we have the

capacity to deal with so many patients, we need staff. So we

asked, Do you have a building here we could look at and maybe do it

up for them? So we were shown two buildings. We selected the first

one. We look at the second one also. And in December, our teams

came to work because she said the new doctors will be in in January.

And we looked at the building, and through Christmas and New Year, we

worked, and we had it ready for the doctors to move in today. So

it's basically to provide additional staff for the hospital,

and also, not only for covid 19, once covid 19 is gone, for future,

any doctors that come there is accommodation to benefit the

hospital. How much has all of this cost? Dr suluman,

it cost us 3 million for this, this upgrade. And the team before

that, a few weeks before that, had worked in settlers. Again, there

we found two wards which we upgraded, but a high care

facility, 20 point oxygen, high care facility for 20 covid

patients at a cost of 750,000

again, an investment that's of huge value for the medical teams,

the CEOs as well. More importantly, of all the patients

coming to the facility, this is not the only project you're

involved in. There quite a number of them that you've been rolling

out, especially in the Eastern Cape, where does all this money

come from? Because ultimately, you need to be able to have a healthy

bank balance in order to do the kind of work that you're doing. Dr

Suleiman,

well, all thanks to South Africans. You know, money has come

from South Africans. And we must say the corporates have been

really, really good on this, in this, in this project, covid 19,

that the corporates have been absolutely phenomenal. I mean,

never in our history do we get corporates calling us in January,

1, second, third and fourth of January, even in january MONTH as

a whole, already, the calls are pouring in wanting to know, what

else can we do as South Africans? We've all got to stand together.

And corporates have been calling us to say we need to support we've

seen the infrastructure projects. We've seen that the CPA machines

have rolled up. We've seen all the PPE is delivered. We've seen all

the other changes being done and the bids and everything being

provided. And more importantly, our staff and their families are

telling us of the difference it's making on the ground. We need to

support you more. So as a corporates, it's already South

Africans. Everybody doing, whether it's 10 Rand, 5100, everybody who

can afford it or digging into their pocket. Want to make a

difference, because this benefits South Africans as a whole. It's

certainly good to hear that corporates are coming to the part

in the way that they are, because it also suggests that they want

this country to get through this moment, so that, you know, people

can effectively get to get back to work. So when it comes then to

some of the work that you're still going to be rolling out in a

situation like the Eastern Cape, where you've been focusing a large

bulk of your resources over the last couple of months. Does it

mean that it's corporates within the Eastern Cape, or these just

national companies that are saying, here's money, take it to

where it's most desperately needed?

Well, that's a very good question. We expected that corporates of the

Eastern Cape will come on in the bigger way, and we thought that

other corporates from Gauteng and Western Cape will not be

interested. Strangely, it's a corporates in Johannesburg and in

Cape Town that have come forward in large numbers to benefit the

Eastern Cape. And it's no more a territorial thing or a

geographical thing, because we're all affected in some way or other.

Workers come from the Eastern Cape to jobok or Cape Town. People move

to the different provinces from other areas. So equally, disease

is spreading all across the country. There is only one common

objective. You got a good project. You can save lives. We want to do

whatever we can to help. Are you finding that there has been an

improvement? However, when it comes to the situation in the

Eastern Cape, which you've been so vocal about, including just some

of the levels of hunger that that you've seen people experience and

have to go through there,

the hunger hasn't stopped. Even worse, because as the time has

passed, many more people have lost their jobs. The economy is

starting.

Only money is Eastern Cape used to come from people working in Joburg

and Cape Town, and now a lot of them have lost their jobs, and

also the small jobs people are doing. There is no business to

support giving people handouts or a small salary or a small wage or

a tip or something, wait, meet a waiter, and remember, December was

a peak period where we expected, you know, holiday makers to come.

The beach is closed for good reason. You can't blame government

for that, for good reason. And because of that, the tourism

industry virtually collapsed. There's no foreign tourists, like

what you would get in December. Normally, every year, all that

income is gone. So from the food point of view, it's it's critical.

And also the schools are closed. So there's no feeding scheme for

those kids who get food at schools. So the hunger situation

is really, really critical, and the 350 I don't think it's going

to come anymore. There's just not much funding left for that. So

yes, from the from the food point of view, it's an absolute crisis.

From the medical point of view, it looks like the numbers are

starting to stabilize and starting to come down, but there's still a

lot of people dying. That's a big problem, alright? Doctor. Imtia

Suleman of gift of the givers, let's leave it there for tonight.