26 Aug 2015

The clinical director at Princess Marina Hospital (PMH) Dr Ishmael Makone has said that overcrowding at the hospital could compromise patient care quality.

Speaking at the PMH media stakeholders Pitso on Tuesday August 25, he said the hospital is the largest and busiest referral facility in the country. He said that it effectively serves the whole country as certain conditions such as heart and kidney diseases as well as cancers are only referred to PMH.

He highlighted that while the hospital has 567 bed capacity, it can admit 600-750 patients at a time, making it extremely overcrowded. Dr Makone said the absence of primary or district hospitals in Gaborone contributes to the overcrowding as there is no step down facility that PMH can offload patients to. As a result patients are kept at the hospital until they are discharged.

The director further stated that there is inadequate blood at the blood bank leading to problems such as cancellation of operations, prolonged stay in hospital, and even death. “The hospital has limited space and can’t expand hence can’t cope with increasing population leading to shortage of space for consultations, theatre time and new services that are added,” he said.

The doctor stated that there is compromised quality of care due to inadequate staff to patient ratio, adding that it also becomes difficult to control the spread of infection or to clean properly owing to congestion. He said they are taking steps to address the problem by encouraging cold cases or walk-ins to be reviewed in local clinics and also transferring of patients to nearby primary/district facilities.

The director of communications at the Botswana Government Communication and Information System (BGCIS) Mr Russ Molosiwa said government officials should not hide information from journalists as they are a medium that disseminates information to the public.

He advised them not to be scared of journalists but rather give them facts that would enable them to write balanced stories. Mr Molosiwa said PMH should be visible at all times by giving out information that is of value and hence remain credible.

He said the role of BGCIS is to gather and archive information that would be used by future generations. Press Council of Botswana executive secretary Ms Matshidiso Mosalagae encouraged the journalists to report objectively and adhere to the media code of ethics.

She stated that journalists should be able to accord equal opportunities to all sources and be ready to provide proof when it is requested. Ms Mosalagae said the right of reply or apology should be placed on the same page where the offending story was published. Ends