04 Jul 2018

Botswana Retired Nurses Society (BORNUS) recently hosted a health fair seminar for people with hearing imparement.
the deaf community in Ramotswa.

The event was part of BORNUS efforts of reaching out to people with hearing imparement in providing health services.

BORNUS centre director Ms Mavis Kewakae stated that provision of health services to the hearing impared was not sufficient due to communication barrier. Hence, the centre came up with an initiative to reach out to the them through the assistance of the United States donor funding.

“The deaf healthcare has always been a grey area because of lack of communication,” she stated adding that BORNUS wanted to bring services closer to the hearing impared.

She stated thatpeople with hearing imparement  always encountered obstacles when seeking services as they were often forced to disclose their health status to the third party. Ms

Kewakae, therefore, made an appeal to government to avail people to assist the hearing impared when seeking services, adding that sign language training was a necessity in all service providers.

United States Ambassador, Mr Earl Miller said it was an open secret that the hearing impared needed additional help to access services. Mr Miller said they were not disabled but only needed more resources to be availed to integrate them into the rest of the community. Further, he stated that his country was committed to helping the society through the

Presidents’ Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), small grant project which aided BORNUS.

Each year, he said PEPFAR provided small grant assistance to support HIV prevention project throughout the country and added that community health service for the deaf population was another example of the small grant assistance. Ambassador Miller commended BORNUS saying even after their retirement, the nurses and social workers decided to selflessly commit their time and knowledge to continue serving those in need.

He said BORNUS provided comprehensive community care and support to people living with HIV/AIDS and chronic illness, as well as orphans and vulnerable children, and stated that on a long-term their programmes focused on strengthening the capacity of families and communities.

For her part, Kgosi Mosadi Seboko of Balete said PEPFAR had been involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the country and encouraged all to take advantage of the existing programmes to test, know their status and live a healthy lifestyle. ENDS