Clinical Forensic Medicine Department /

Victoria Hospital Thuthuzela Care Centre 

The Thuthuzela Care Centre (TCC) is a unit where the victims of sexual and gender-based violence are cared for and managed. We have a multidisciplinary team approach providing expert care in one place. Containment counselling, STI testing and counselling, medical evaluation and clinical forensic evidence collection as well as post-exposure prophylaxis and treatment are provided alongside the integration of police services, legal advice and psychosocial support services by the Department of Social Development.

 

The TCC is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year where we deliver a service to rape, intimate partner violence, gender-based violence and child abuse patients free of charge.

 

As the TCC manages patients affected directly by societal ills, it is part of their mandate to prevent the scourge of GBV affecting our people. This is done by outreach programs in collaboration with the community and other stakeholders. Similarly, the unit is trying to increase their impact by training colleagues at different facilities to improve the quality of service in the medico-legal field. Research is part and parcel of the practice of evidence-based medicine at this TCC.

We aim to start to repair the dignity of each patient as they enter our door, whilst ensuring justice for all by delivering world class expert medico-legal and psychological care.

”An injury to one is an injury to all”

 

The Team

 There will always be one Rape Crisis Counselor and an Enrolled Nurse Assistant to assist anybody entering the unit.

Sr. Nontuthuzelo Ntwana is an experienced clinical nurse practitioner and forensic nurse examiner who has worked in the unit for a number of years. She is also responsible for the nursing team at the unit.

Ms Edlynne van Willingh is the Site Co-Ordinator appointed by the National Prosecuting Authority. Ms Van Willingh is a therapeutic social worker by profession and has years of experience working at Wynberg Sexual Offences Court.

The clinical team also includes other medical practitioners experienced in Clinical Forensic Medicine who assist with the after-hour service deliveries.

Andrea Turner, a registered counsellor, is the Victim Assistance Officer responsible for the arrangement of psychosocial aftercare for the survivors.