Gateway and Poly Clinic

General

A Gateway Clinic is situated on the corner of Gillespie and Rutherford Streets and serves as the Adult Primary Health Clinic of Addington Hospital.

The clinic comprises of two components:
1. A Primary Health Care Clinic where patients with minor ailments are seen by trained primary health care sisters free of charge
2. At Poly clinic, Doctors see patients with more complicated cases and a fee is levied according to the patient’s income.

The Casualty Department of Addington Hospital caters to patients in need of emergency treatment, while the Poly Clinic attends to patients with non-emergency or routine problems.

At the Gateway Clinic, patients are assessed, investigated and treated either by Primary Health Care sisters or if necessary by doctors, who may refer them for specialist treatment if needed. Once patients are stabilised they are referred back to their local clinic or MOPD for chronic care. Patients should remember that the number issued on arrival is only a guide to the order in which they will be seen. Ill patients are given priority and “fast tracked” through the system, as are certain other classes of patients.

Who do we serve?

We will attend to any patients who live in our catchment areas. Unfortunately we are not able to attend to patients who do not live in our catchment areas and these patients will be referred back after the assessment of the clinical condition to their respective hospitals or clinics. These patients must attend the hospitals or clinics designated for their area.

What to bring

Patients should bring:

Proof of address in the form of electricity, telephone or water account, or any account sent to them at the claimed address. Accounts must be in the patient’s name, and not in the name of a relative.
A referral letter, if they have been referred by a local clinic or their private doctor
The names of, or the containers of, any medication that they may be taking.

Patients on medication should always bring the empty containers with them if they do not know the names of their medications.

Procedure

On arrival patients should get a number from the Security Guard.
They should then join the queue starting from outside room 9.
From there they will be taken into the hall where a sister will assess the severity of their complaint, and decide whether they need to be seen by a PHC sister, or by a doctor.
Nursing staff will then do various basic observations.
Those patients that are to be seen by a PHC sister will be sent to wait outside rooms 1, 2 or 3.
Those patients who need to be seen by a doctor will go to the cashier who will assess how much they need to pay, issue a receipt and order their file.
Patients should take their receipts to the ward clerk in room 8 and thereafter wait in the Hall until their files arrive. When the files arrive their names will be called by the ward clerk, who will direct them to a doctor’s room.
Once the doctor has assessed the patients they will either undergo further evaluation or will be sent to the pharmacy for medication.

Facilities

Beside primary care the PHC sisters offer the following services:
Counselling
Health education
HIV testing is available and there is a Reproductive Health Unit on site.

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