04 Jun 2018

 World Health Organisation (WHO) country representative, Dr Martins Obveredjo has applauded Botswana for its commitment in addressing issues related to public health.

Giving a keynote address at the seventh Ministry of Health and Wellness (MoHW) Excellence Awards recently in Gaborone, Dr Obveredjo noted that Botswana was paying attention to both communicable and non-communicable diseases.

He said WHO continued to support Botswana’s initiatives in health and in addressing critical issues such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. 

He noted that they were committed to have zero HIV infections.

Dr Obveredjo also decried the emerging challenge of drug resistant Tuberculosis (TB), and urged both the public and the health sector to unite against the  menacing problem, saying it had the effect to reverse the already gained mileage. 

He also underscored the need to fight malaria and the deadly Ebola disease.

However, Dr Obveredjo applauded the Ministry of Health and Wellness for reforms aimed at improving service delivery. 

He also called for strong public private partnerships in health with  assistance from his organisation which has vowed to assist government in the health sector.

Speaking at the same event, Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Alfred Madigele said they had an agenda to transform the health system in order for the public to experience better health outcomes. 

He said they should be challenged to achieve individual and collective targets.  

Dr Madigele, however, noted that  the health sector was faced with many challenges. 

He named Ebola as one of the challenges, saying the disease was complicated and needed technical expertise, resources and concerted efforts to deal with it. 

He said the challenges were pitted against limited resources, both financial and human resources, which required employees to maximise the limited resources.

“I must caution, however, that our individual desire to achieve must not be at the expense of corporate delivery. 

We must realise that in modern day organisations where globalisation and technology exposes us to competition, forging partnerships and collaboration is imperative if we are to achieve,” he said.

Held under the theme: Clear, bold and self-driven workforce, the permanent secretary said they would implement the restructuring exercise that had been ongoing for the past three years.

 He further highlighted that as they celebrated the awards, the bar had been set a little higher because with restructuring came with change.

“I wish to appeal to everyone here, especially today’s recipients to be our role models as we go through the restructuring process. 

Remember, the primary goal is to improve service delivery, which I want to believe, we all want for the benefit of our clients,” he said.

Meanwhile, the coordinator of National AIDS Coordinating Agency (NACA), Mr Richard Matlhare encouraged staff to participate by taking part during the nominations of deserving candidates.

Mr Matlhare noted that the awards had the potential to motivate or demotivate officers if not well administered. 

He said if deserving officers were not nominated, they  might be demoralised. ENDS