15 Feb 2013

The Health hub has initiated a number of innovative programmes that address the health sector challenges of service delivery, health assistant minister, Mr Gaotlhaetse Matlhabaphiri has said.

Responding to a question in Parliament from Okavango MP, Mr Bagalatia Arone, Mr Matlhabaphiri said the innovative programmes included setting up of clinical centres of excellence, outsourcing non-core services and leveraging the capacity of the private sector in healthcare provision where government did not have the expertise and promotion of the development of pharmaceutical manufacturing.

To date, he said, six centres of excellence had been established, the Spinal Cord Injury Centre at Princess Marina Hospital, which improved quality of life of clients with spinal cord injuries and rehabilitated them back to life, the Ophthalmology at Sekgoma Memorial and Dutch Reformed Hospitals which addressed the increasing burden of eye diseases and conditions.

Other centres, he said were the Diabetes centres at Princess Marina Hospital and Block 6 in Gaborone and Donga in Francistown which provided comprehensive diabetic care.

In addition, Mr Matlhabaphiri said the Orthopedic centre at Princes Marina and Mahalapye District hospitals provided specialist orthopedic services, while the cardiac service centre at Princess Marina Hospital provided services such as cardiac survey and transplants.

Oother centres of excellence include the Nephrology Service centre which provides dialysis services to improve the overall care of renal patients.

Further, to ensure that these centres of excellence function to their maximum and have a long term impact on health care provision in the country, Mr Matlhabaphiri said an initiative to recruit highly specialised healthcare providers had been put in place.

“Through this initiative, 53 super specialists will be recruited and deployed to referral and district hospitals. To date, 21 specialists have already been posted while the remaining specialists will be deployed over the next coming months,” he said.

Regarding outsourcing, Mr Matlhabaphiri explained that “we have been outsourcing non-core services such as maintenance of buildings and biomedical equipment, laundry, catering and grounds maintenance. Laundry is being outsourced at S’brana, Princess Marina and Nyangabgwe Hospitals.”

Through the Health Hub, Mr Matlhabaphiri said the ministry had enabled private practitioners to offer certain services in the areas of dialysis and cardiac services in Letsholathebe, Sekgoma and Princess Marina.

He said the government was currently not able to provide these services due to their specialist nature and complexity.

He also said the Health hub had been working on bringing pharmaceutical manufacturing companies into the country. To date, he said only one company had setup a manufacturing factory in Gaborone out of a total of three that had earlier expressed interest.

"The company which is a partnership with a foreign investor was expected to start manufacturing in April 2013," he added.

The assistant minister said the manufacturing of pharmaceutical products in this country would improve availability of drugs and related medicines in the healthcare facilities and also guarantee security of supply and create employment.

MP Arone had wanted the health minister to appraise the House on what the Health Hub had achieved since it was established to transform Botswana into a centre of excellence in the provision of health care services. ENDS