22 Feb 2018

Ministry of Health and Wellness is not in a position to upgrade the Salajwe clinic to a 24-hour facility as statistics on its utilisation do not justify such an upgrading. 

This was revealed by the head of the District Health Management Team (DHMT) for Letlhakeng Sub-district, Dr Terrence Mokuhwa when responding to the Letlhakeng Sub-Council Forum on Tuesday.

Dr Mokuhwa said the only viable solution they could consider at the moment was to look at how they could shuffle around the staff complement to ensure that services run smoothly at the health facility all the time.Dr Mokuhwa also informed the councillors that there was no date set for the commencement of the construction of the Letlhakeng Poly Clinic, and that at the moment its design would be completed this year. He said after the completion of the design stage, the ministry would then be in a position to make a decision on when the construction would commence looking at the availability of funds. He also said the cancellation of the upgrading of Ditshegwane Health Post to a clinic was one of the seven in the area cancelled due to lack of funds.

He also conceded that Maboane clinic was in need of a major maintenance and that the job of maintaining clinics was in the hands of a private company.

Dr Mokuhwa was responding after councillor for Salajwe, Mr Lopang Sebutlenyane raised concern that Salajwe clinic needs to be upgraded to a round the clock facility as it was overwhelmed because it served nearby villages such as Kaudwane and Sorilatholo.

He also indicated that the staff complement was not enough as nurses had to take patients on referrals to as far as Molepolole, leaving other patients unattended. 

He also argued that the bad terrain between Salajwe and Letlhakeng also made ambulance movements slow. Meanwhile, on the procedure of reporting faults at clinics, the sub-council chairperson, Mr Tlotlo Batlhophi advised that DHMT should liaise with its staff at clinics to report faults to the private company engaged rather than expect members of the community to do so. He was advising after it emerged that Gabana Investment, the company contracted by the council to take care of all maintenance at the clinics indicated they had set up a call centre for faults reporting.

Councillor Batlhophi also wondered why people, should be tasked with reporting faults when the company indicated that it had done an inspection of all the health facilities across the sub-district.

However, Gabana Investment representative, Ms Gomotsang Gaoalafe indicated that the call centre was only set for receiving reports on emergency faults, while non-emergency faults on major maintenance problems had been put on a plan to be discussed with the ministry for scheduled maintenance. Ends