06 Jun 2016

The process of subjecting Botswana’s public health facilities to quality standards grading has led to three of the country’s clinics being the first in African to get an accreditation by a reputed regional standards body. 

The Council for Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa (COHSASA), the only internationally accredited quality improvement and accreditation body for African-based healthcare facilities, has accredited Botswana’s Phuthadikobo in Molepolole, as well as Mahalapye’s Xhosa and Airstrip clinics.

Availing quality healthcare is part of government’s priority areas, and in an interview, the Director of Health Services in the Ministry of Health, Dr Khumo Seipone revealed that Botswana has seen success in this regard, as the first African country to have its public health facilities accredited.

“Ours are the first public health facilities to make the COHSASA grade. This goes to show that our country has some of the best public health facilities in the region.

But we know that there is much room for improvement, which is exactly why we have subjected our facilities to international quality standards testing,” Dr Seipone said. She said that facilities are graded based on certain set criteria such as management, clinical support and patient rights, with all services tested having to score at least 80 per cent.

Non-compliance on any criteria as well as the observation of anything that could result in harm to patients or staff leads to non-accreditation.

“The MoH has its own National Health Quality Standards with guidelines for hospitals, clinics, environmental health services, emergency medical services and mortuaries.

Although we have these national standards, from 2012 we went further to subject 18 of our health facilities to international grading in order to check where we fit in internationally,” Dr Seipone revealed.

Five of the 18 local facilities under review from COHSASA made the grade including the three clinics. The two hospitals that received high marks, Scottish Livingstone and Mahalapye, scored high overall grades of over 90 per cent, but were not accredited due to failure to meet one of the set criteria.

“Because we are measuring ourselves against the best in the region and world, the COHSASA grading has helped us introspect on areas we need to work on to improve.

Our other facilities not making the grade only acts as impetus for us to improve patient flow, hygiene and general service; we will improve and subject our facilities to further grading,” she said.

Dr Seipone also said that the vast majority of Botswana’s population, 85 per cent lives within 15 kilometres of a health facility, with referral hospitals, district hospitals, primary clinics and mobile stops provided countrywide.

“Our country is internationally recognised as one of the best in the world in terms of universal access to healthcare, and we are working on improving areas such as access, doctor-patient ratio and the quality of the healthcare we offer,” she said. ENDS