Photo: Sharna Fernandez
Photo: Sharna Fernandez
Up to one million social grant recipients will be able to book medical appointments with SASSA online from this week onwards, after the Department of Social Development partnered with GovChat to help ‘streamline’ the agency.
Some SASSA grant recipients can now ‘skip the queues’
The new system will allow any of the 997 000 people claiming disability grants in SA to arrange a time and date for their medical assessments. That means there will be fewer ‘speculative’ trips to local SASSA offices, in the hope that a healthcare professional can see a client before the end of a long day queuing up. Minister Lindiwe Zulu declared:
“The online booking will address challenges associated with long queues at local offices and ensure that SASSA complies with COVID-19 regulations. The online booking will also address challenges associated with long queues at local offices and ensure that SASSA complies with COVID-19 regulations.” | Lindiwe Zulu
"Disability Grant reaches 997K beneficiaries monthly and is the third-largest grant after Old Age Grant and Child Support Grant." @The_DSD Minister Lindiwe Zulu
— SASSA (@OfficialSASSA) April 28, 2021
Super useful things to know about the new online booking system – for disability grants ONLY
- – You can access the online booking portal by visiting https://www.sassa.gov.za/Pages/Disability-Grant.aspx
- – There are eight criteria South African applicants will have to meet – and they’ve been listed here.
- – You will also need to join GovChat and create a profile, in order to book your medical assessment with SASSA.
- – According to Lindiwe Zulu, up to 25 full-time staff are being trained to manage this pilot scheme:
“I don’t want to see hundreds of thousands of people standing in queues, hence the reason why we launched this online application – because it means people can be able to apply from home.”
“We’ve trained probably 10 out of 25 people but the training is going to be a long-term training because this is a pilot project, it means we need to be able to train people in all the Sassa offices. We might even use volunteers.”
