12 May 2016

Minister of Health, Ms Dorcas Makgato has commended Lions Club of Gaborone for donation of 50 wheelchairs, which will be used in various government health facilities.

Speaking at the handover ceremony in Gaborone on May 12, Minister Makgato said wheel chairs played an important role in disability mainstreaming which was a part of the government’s developmental goal.

She noted that wheelchairs were medically designed devices which were critical to enabling clients with physical disabilities some independence in activities of daily living.

The minister stated that in 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) developed the 2014-2021 disability action plan which had three objectives that included, addressing barriers and improving access to health care services and programmes and to strengthen collection of the nationally relevant and internationally comparable data and support research on disability. 

In addition, Ms Makgato said issuing such devices was therefore in line with what was expected of Botswana as per the WHO objectives.

She said Lions Club of Gaborone’s usual support to her Ministry was worth applauding, as they had also donated wheelchairs to Princess Marina last year hoping for continuous rapport .

Ms Makgato indicated that the wheelchairs would be distributed across various government hospitals and clinics all over the country.

Meanwhile, the president of Lions Club International Mr Sundar Yegnaswami mentioned that as the mandate of the club, one of their goals came to fruition through donating wheelchairs to the Ministry of Health.

He noted that the club had been involved in numerous projects of serving the community of Botswana such as public eye screening, donation of blankets to the under-privileged citizens in various villages and provision of monthly groceries to orphans.

Mr Yegnaswami highlighted that the donated wheelchairs should be able to assist and create ethos of dignity for patients such as expectant mothers, patients in pain to gain mobility as well as the elderly people who could not walk on their own to lighten the burden of the nurses and doctors.

He further said that Lions Club of Gaborone was proud to serve the community of Botswana, citing that they stood for excellence in service and pledged to continue striving for those issues issues that mattered to the club. ENDS