Site Visits for the Conference
On the final day of the conference, attendees were given the option to attend 1 out of 5 planned Humanitarian and/or Healthcare Logistics sites as part of a group tour.
Site Visit Option 1: Gift of the Givers (NGO) Logistics Centre and "Project Higher Ground"
Visit a successful South African NGO in worldwide Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief. Also includes a visit to a successful NGO partnership housing project.
This site visit will take you to Gift of the Giver's Disaster relief warehousing and logistics centre. Here you will be exposed to the passion and dedication that the organisation has for disaster relief, humanitarian aid and other important humanitarian and disaster relief related projects. You will have a talk with Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, the founder and CEO of Gift of the Givers who will guide you through their cutting edge and successful approach to the logistics surrounding disaster relief and humanitarian aid initiatives across the world.
The second part of the site visit includes a visit to Gift of the Givers' "Project Higher Ground" in Alexandra Township. Here you will be exposed to a successful NGO disaster response in the form of a community housing project. Gift of the Givers Housing village in Alex is a testimony to an effective, decisive, lifesaving intervention in cases of floods. "Project Higher Ground" as it was named was to relocate people from a river bank that floods annually and washes their shanty houses away. The project moved an entire community from a lower level to a higher level within the same locality without displacing them kilometres away.
The practicality of this project and the quality of the housing village designed could be a model to be replicated throughout South Africa. A visit to the site during this time of flooding will be of immense value to decision makers. Occupants of this housing village, previously having been victims of repeated floods, can now openly express their state of joy and sense of security compared to the past.
Schedule (total time: 3 hours):
- 20 Minutes' drive from GIBS to Warehousing Centre
- 40 minute talk by Imtiaz Sooliman (Head) on the work that the organisation does in the disaster relief sector, worldwide. Then he will discuss ‘project higher ground'
- 20 minute tour of Warehousing Facility
- 15 Minutes' drive to Alexandra Township Project
- ~1 hour tour of project Higher Ground, including talk, tour of facility and a Q&A session with project manager, Emily Thomas.
- 25 Minutes' drive from Project Higher Ground back to GIBS
Site Visit Option 2: Unjani Container Clinics Project
A Successful project offering in affordable Private primary Healthcare where it is needed within the context of a 'dysfunctional' public primary healthcare system.
Unjani Clinic is a network of primary healthcare clinics owned and operated by black South African women that provide accessible, affordable and quality healthcare to communities in low income areas. It complements the re-engineering of our healthcare system by creating community based healthcare structures at the point of need.
At this site visit you will be exposed to an innovative model that addresses the inequality which exists between private and public healthcare services in South Africa. Whilst private and public hospitals and clinics exist there are too few to deal with the increasing healthcare burden and private healthcare is too expensive for the bulk of the population. The innovation behind Unjani Clinic is based on shifting primary healthcare tasks to Professional Nurses and the ability to leverage a highly developed and extensive private sector distribution network to ensure more people have access to medicines.
Unjani Clinic empowers women within their communities to own and lead the effort in transforming the healthcare system. At the front-end of the clinic delivery mechanism, the financial model has been tried and tested to ensure that sustainability pre-supposes commercial viability. All clinics in the network are given the business support and on-going coaching and mentoring to succeed and make a profit.
Schedule (total time: 3 hours):
- 45 Minutes’ drive from GIBS to First Clinic
- 30 Minute talk at the first clinic by project manager, Lynda Toussaint on the project, its logistical elements and impact on community.
- 10 Minute tour of clinic and Q&A with the owner
- 20 Minutes’ drive to next clinic
- 10 Minute tour of Clinic and Q&A with the owner
- 15 Minutes’ drive to next clinic and overall Q&A session with Lynda Toussaint, project Manager
- 45 Minutes back to GIBS
Site Visit Option 3: Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital
Understanding the Challenge of Public Health logistics in one of the biggest hospitals in the world.
This site visit will allow you to explore some of the challenges facing the public healthcare system in South Africa. Since Baragwaneth hospital is so expansive, containing over 3000 beds, this poses unique logistical challenges to the delivery of public healthcare. One of the biggest issues that have been raised by the doctors is that broken equipment at the hospital doesn’t get readily fixed. This has had dire implications for patients as broken equipment took months to get fixed if fixed at all. For example, a broken x-ray machine resulted in many botched operations in the orthopaedics department that had to be redone.
At this site visit, you will receive a talk from a logistics manager at the hospital who explains just how immense the logistical challenges are. You will also be taken on a tour of this hospital, and be afforded the opportunity to ask questions.
Schedule (total time: 3 hours 5 minutes):
- 45 Minutes’ drive from GIBS to Baragwanath Hospital
- 45 Minute Talk with Logistics Manager at hospital
- 30 Minute tour of part of the hospital
- 20 Minutes Q&A
- 45 Minutes’ drive back to GIBS
Site Visit Option 4: Imperial Health Sciences Warehousing and Distribution Centre
A look at high tech distribution of healthcare products throughout Africa
IMPERIAL has a state of the art healthcare distribution center in Johannesburg and is delighted to host delegates from the conference (including arranging transportation and catering). IMPERIAL is very involved in, and has a broad reach in, distribution of health care products throughout Africa (http://www.ihs.za.com/). The site visit will include a tour of their distribution facility as well as insights into IMPERIAL's Warehouse/Clinic in a Box program (https://youtu.be/uGHnr4DMwU8). The innovative Warehouse-in-a Box™ (WiB) is a turnkey solution that delivers the infrastructure, equipment and support services to rapidly erect a fully functional, ready-to-use, pharmaceutical warehouse and operational service that can easily be located closer to the points of care.
The WIB can stand alone or complement existing infrastructure, provide fully compliant, world class storage and operational facilities. WiB comprises pre-engineered modular components and fittings that can be erected quickly and easily and can be fully maintained and operated by local personnel. WiB allows for effective management of local medical supply chain needs to ensure a reliable quantity and quality of pharmaceutical stock. While WiB has been developed for rural use, its standards and operational benchmarks are aligned with international supply chain principles.
Schedule (total time: 3 hours):
- 45 Minutes’ drive from GIBS
- 30 Minute talk with a logistics/general manager
- 1 hour tour of the facility including Q&A session
- 45 Minutes’ drive back to GIBS
Site Visit Option 5: UTI Pharmaceutical Distribution Centre
A look at high tech distribution of pharmaceuticals throughout Sub-Saharan Africa
UTi Pharma + Healthcare is one of Sub-Saharan Africa's leading distributors of pharmaceutical and healthcare products, and is part of UTi Worldwide, a global supply chain management company. UTi serves healthcare markets such as generics; opthalmics; diagnostics & devices; surgical; retail; OTC & consumer; nutritionals; cosmetics and beauty; skin protection; and animal health. UTi's "state of the art" highly automated distribution center (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4ThSBAO7uE) will be toured and a post tour meeting will be held with management for Q&A.
Schedule (total time: 2 hours 40 minutes):
- 40 Minutes’ drive from GIBS
- 30 Minute talk with a logistics/general manager
- 1 hour tour of the facility including Q&A session
- 40 Minutes’ drive back to GIBS
