26 Apr 2016

Minister of Health, Ms Dorcas Makgato has urged Batswana to focus more on preventative care rather than cure.

Speaking at kgotla meetings in Takatokwane and Letlhakeng on Friday, Ms Makgato said negligence of preventative care was a concern to her ministry as they ended up spending more funds on treating lifestyle diseases than communicable ones.

“My ministry currently spends about three times more funds on treatment of lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and obesity than it does on communicable ones like HIV and AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. 

A few years ago a bulk of our budget went to addressing HIV and AIDS, but lifestyle diseases have since become our biggest concern,” she said.

Ms Makgato therefore urged Batswana to focus more on changing their lifestyles as a way of preventing such diseases.

“People have to know that their health is determined by what they do and what they eat, and therefore they must exercise and eat healthy. These lifestyle diseases have become a silent killer,” she said. 

She also urged Batswana to resort to traditional foods such as bran because they were far much healthy compared to exotic foods, adding research has indicated that 90 per cent of Batswana hardly included vegetables and fruits in their daily diet.

Ms Makgato also advised men to shed off their phobia of health facilities, saying failure to seek medical help could lead to a person dying from an ailment that could have been easily treated if detected on time.

On other issues, Ms Makgato indicated that lack of vehicles was a concern across the ministry.

She explained that at the moment, the ministry was running at a shortage of 555 vehicles.

However, she said the intention was to address the shortage over a period of three years because vehicles cannot be procured in one financial year.

She also informed Takatokwane residents that their clinic would be upgraded to include a theatre, dental department. 

She added that the clinic would also get a back-up generator and four staff houses would be constructed under the Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP).

 Nonetheless, the minister indicated that they would not be able to provide additional doctors because shortage was extensive across the country.

Further, she said the Letlhakeng clinic would be upgraded to a 30-bed primary hospital together with 10 additional staff houses. 

Also, she said the task team she had assembled to benchmark from Namibia and South Africa on how the two countries managed to entice and retain scarce skilled medical personnel such as doctor had finished their report which she would soon study.

Ms Makgato also said the ministry was expecting some specialists from China and Cuba and thus the ministry would then be able to send non-specialists doctors to other areas where they are needed the most.

The minister was responding after residents of the two villages raised concerns common in medical facilities in their villages such as shortage of nurses, midwives and staff accommodation as well as the need to upgrade them. ENDS