Moosa Kharodia prioritises the homeless
- Wits University
Initiatives such as the pharmacy set up in the Holy Trinity Church ensured that the homeless and elderly receive healthcare and essentials during lockdown.
The Covid-19 pandemic continues to peak around the world and South Africa is not spared. Many people continue to be vulnerable to the current socio-economic conditions that are exacerbated by the pandemic, such as limited access to healthcare and necessities. The Wits Senior Executive Team set out to recognise individuals and teams whose selfless contributions made an impact on the lives of people during the 2020 national Covid-19 lockdown.
Moosa Kharodia, an Associate Lecturer in the Wits Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology is an individual who has led various community outreach programmes, even prior to the pandemic. He says that the consequences of the pandemic opened his eyes to the heart-breaking reality of the gaps that community-centred initiatives bridge.
He says that his initial reaction after the announcement of the level 5 lockdown was that of shock. “I had been working with the homeless, disabled and elderly, and my mind raced at the havoc and destruction that the hard lockdown would have on already marginalised communities”.
Through his role as the departmental Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) programme coordinator, Kharodia became the responsible pharmacist of the Trinity Health Services Pharmacy at the Holy trinity Church in Braamfontein, where he supervises students who provide healthcare services and medication to the homeless.
Due to the lockdown, the basic healthcare that the pharmacy was providing to the homeless was halted, which had a great impact on their access to the essential services. “A large proportion of our patients have no basic rights as they lack identification. Without NGOs, outreach programmes and departments like ours, they are left to fend for themselves,” he explains.
To provide holistic support to marginalised communities such as the homeless and those in care centres and old age homes throughout the City of Johannesburg, Kharodia has played an active role in setting up coordinated programmes that provide hand sanitisers, flu vaccinations, blankets and food parcels, amongst other items. In the low-resourced context of the 2020 lockdown, he sought assistance from corporate partners to ensure that necessities to safeguard against the spread of Covid-19 in such communities were equally prioritised.
Fundraising was a difficult task and the reduced economic activities in the country at the time meant that companies that would have ordinarily supported such work were reluctant to give financial support due to uncertainty.
“At the time we had forged great working relationships with a pharmaceutical company as well as the transformation directorate at the office of the Premier, and we immediately started to spearhead and activate various Covid-19 centred community initiatives with the assistance of these players as well as community elders, business and religious groups”.
He says that this support came at a critical time as various organisations started to request assistance when the lockdown came to effect. Together with his fellow nominee and the Head of the Wits Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, Professor Yahya Choonara, they became proactive in searching for funds for the initiatives. They also became involved in the provision of PPE packs to members of the community.
Kharodia joined other initiatives including a programme to educate communities about Covid-19 and to protect themselves from exposure. His work, and that of the many Wits Health Sciences student volunteers who assisted in these programmes and in hospital pharmacies to bolster capacity is an exceptional reflection of a community at work for the good of all, which is applauded.
“I plan to continue all the initiatives we have started and have activated further community outreach programmes together with foundations that already exist and that need a lending hand,” he concludes.