01 Apr 2014

Principal health officer, Mr Moitshepi Galeemelwe says the Ministry of Health (MoH) is aware of the shortage of health assistants in hospitals. 

He was responding to concerns raised by residents about the shortage of health assistants (bo-Mmaboitekanelo) during a visit to Sekgoma Memorial Hospital by Assistant Minister of Health, Dr Gloria Somolekae. 

Mr Galeemelwe said the shortage was partly due to the fact that the MoH stopped in-house training of health assistants in 2008 and outsourced it to an authorised training institution.

“We identified Boitekanelo College as a suitable trainer in 2012 after thorough assessment. We also made recommendations on how the college should improve its curriculum. Therefore we recognise Boitekanelo as a training institution for health assistants,” said Mr Galeemelwe.

He said the MoH needed 1956 health assistants but only had 600 and explained that this is because some left the public service through retirement. 

He, however, admitted that the shortage was worrisome as the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended employment of more health assistants to scale up community interventions. He said the ministry needs an additional 1500 health assistants to deal with challenges put forth by millennium development goals 4, 5 and 6. 

“For this reason we will start a pilot project to train health education assistants for districts that are performing low in child and maternal health interventions,” he said.

He revealed that the first batch of 500 trainees has already completed their six month theory training and are yet to be posted for six months field attachment. After training they will be gradually absorbed into the system and hired on contract basis. Ends