Using the Disca Tool

Findings in the Mount Frere Health District
Accessibility and Utilization
This looked at accessibility in terms of time, availability of consultation rooms, privacy of those
consultation rooms and whether all the consultation rooms treated STIs.
• All the clinics were open between 8-4 with the exception of one clinic that did not give a
response to the question.
• Half of these clinics were not accessible after hours.
• The number of consultation rooms in the 16 clinics was 23. Each clinic ranged from 1-5
with an average of 1,4
• All the available rooms were used for STI consultation. Of the 15 clinics that responded
to the question regarding privacy, 13 said that they treated their STI patients in privacy.
• The number of adult patients seen was 16,130 per month with a range of 625-2985 and an
average of 949 patients per clinic per month.
• Only 13 clinics indicated the number of STI patients. The STI patients range from 6-382
with an average of 54.2
• The total number of STI clients was 704, which is 4.4% of the adult patients. This is a
very small proportion, which could be attributed to the following reasons:
• Data collection was not accurate or
• People do not go to clinics when they have STIs
• Clinicians do not detect STIs in clients coming for other reasons.
Examination facilities
• All the clinics had examination couches. However, only 11 clinics had examination
lights. This was worrying since for proper examination of female genitalia there must be
adequate lighting.
• Only 9 (52%) clinics had sterilized specula. This was quite worrying and may be an
indication that women are not properly examined. The methods employed for sterilizing
specula are boiling and disinfecting.
• All the clinics had examination gloves
Provision of safe and effective treatment
• Sixteen clinics responded to this question and all of them had STI guidelines. Fifteen
responded that they had these guidelines in the consultation rooms
• All the clinics had individual education material
• Only 7(41%) clinics had the education material in Xhosa. This is very worrying because
it means that there are people who do not benefit from such material since they cannot
understand it.
• 16 (94,1%) clinics had dildos available.
• Only one clinic had syphilis testing done on site.
• Only 12 of the 17 clinics had Partner Notification cards available and of the 12, only 4
had these cards in a local language.
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