03 Sep 2017

President Lt Gen. Dr Seretse Khama Ian Khama launched the P309 million 70- bed Shakawe Primary Hospital project on Friday.

The construction started in April this year and is envisaged to end in September 2019. The project is in two phases, the first phase being the construction of the P60 million staff houses in 2015.

The Shakawe Primary Hospital will offer services such as preventative and curative health services, sexual reproductive health services and diagnostic, pharmaceutical, mortuary and dentistry.

Speaking at the launch, President Khama said the purpose of the facility was to improve health outcomes, noting that this required partnership and all had to play their roles.

He said successful completion of the facility would improve access, reduce cost of referrals, improve quality of life and most importantly contribute to reducing morbidities and mortalities.

However, he encouraged people to live healthy, adopt safe and healthy behavioural practices, listen and adhere to medical advice, screen themselves regularly and avoid unhealthy risk factors.

The President noted that there were other immediate advantages associated with the construction of the hospital, which included employment creation, citizen empowerment and re-engineering business processes.

He said it had always been the intention of government to take services to all people, regardless of where they were located.

“We listened and heeded your concerns and request on the need for a hospital in this area and we did just that, despite the limited economic resources. In the long-run, in macroeconomics and health, an investment in health inversely becomes an economic boost or investment in that it will result in among others, increased productivity as people enjoy good health,” he said.

Further, Lt Gen. Dr Khama said the project was strategically aligned to the approved NDP 11 commitments that focused on ensuring that health facilities delivered sustainable quality health services in line with the National Health Policy.

Strengthening health system, the President said had been a priority in government and this included ensuring that people live within a 5km radius from a health facility to facilitate access to quality health care, while currently 84 per cent of the population was within  this target.

Within the NDP 11 plan period, the President said more emphasis would be on expanding and rehabilitating the current infrastructure to make them more habitable, expanding specialised services to districts, skilling health professionals, ensuring the availability of minimum medical equipment at all levels of service delivery and improving outreach of health services.

Further, the President said Economic Stimulus Programme projects were also focused on increasing access to health services.

In addition, he called upon all stakeholders who would  be actively involved in the Shakawe Primary Hospital project to do their utmost to ensure that the project went according to plan, on time and within budget.

He specifically referred to the contractor, the consultants and staff members from the ministries of infrastructure and housing development, as well as health and wellness.

Okavango MP, Mr Bagalatia Arone commended government for the developments it was bringing in the Okavango constituency.

He said it was pleasing to see more infrastructure developments emerging in the Okavango area. Ends