13 Feb 2017

Medical doctors in Letlhakane District Health Management Team do not attend to the HIV patients in some facilities including Khwee Health Post, Tawana and Letlhakane clinics.
Answering a question in Parliament, Assistant Minister of Health and Wellness, Mr Dikgang Makgalemele said such patients are seen by nurses trained in prescribing and dispensing ARVs.
He noted that this was not a new arrangement in the health service, adding that with the rapid roll out of ARV programme, it became clear that the number of doctors in the system could not meet programme demand.
“Therefore, a task shifting strategy was developed to train nurses in ARV prescription and dispensing to attend to stable patients to bridge this gap. They however refer non-stable complicated patients to doctors,” said Mr Makgalemele.
He further noted that with the implementation of the task shifting strategy, a pool of nurses had been equipped to contribute to the implementation of the Treat All initiative. However, he said trainings were ongoing to increase the pool to meet the expected increase in the number of patients as the Treat All is rolled out.
He said other initiatives such as block booking had helped nurses cope with the congestion of patients in the facilities in Boteti East. Boteti East MP, Mr Sethomo Lelatisitswe had asked whether it was true that medical doctors in Letlhakane DHMT did not attend to the HIV/AIDS patients.
He had also wanted to know if this was a new arrangement in the health services, and how the nurses were coping with the Treat All initiative. ENDS