22 Jan 2019

Batswana need a quality, essential and accessible healthcare system to attain universal health coverage, says Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Alfred Madigele.

Speaking during his ministry’s executive leadership retreat in Mahalapye on January 21, Dr Madigele said several measures needed to be put in place to render such a healthcare system to Batswana.

He said for the ministry to achieve its intended goals there must be decentralisation of services.

“The best path for more efficient and responsive governance of the public health system is to empower the DHMTs (district health management teams) and transform them into fully-fledged regional health authorities,” he said.

Dr Madigele blamed delays in appointing substantive heads of DHMTs as per restructuring process for the slow pace of decentralisation.

He said the ministry must formulate an overall national health policy, define minimum care packages, oversee health legislation and carry out monitoring and evaluation to advance the autonomy of DHMTs.

The minister emphasised prevention and comprehensive screening as crucial towards attainment of universal health coverage. Noting that more than 90 per cent of Batswana had access to a health facility within a five kilometre radius, Dr Madigele howevever warned the ministry’s executive leadership against complacency.

He called for the revamping of grassroots efforts ‘in which we should deploy adequate numbers of community health workers through partnerships with the non-governmental sector’.

He said such efforts would aid surveillance at community levels, thereby leading to early treatment in the quest to achieve universal health coverage.

Dr Madigele said the ministry therefore proposed to, “come up with terms of reference and expression of interest for private organisations to offer community health services by mobilising around 3 000 or 4 000 community healthcare workers to start right away by undertaking communitoutreaches, domiciliary visits, non-communicable disease checks, post-natal visits and health promotion among others”.

He said the ministry needed to outsource some services and concentrate on their core mandate.

In addition, he said the ministry needed to devise innovative ways to utilise the private sector to augment its capacity to deliver strategic primary care interventions.

The ministry’s permanent secretary Ms Ruth Maphorisa said that the meeting accorded its leadership a platform to reflect and determine what to discard going forward. 

She warned the executive leadership of the ministry that their positions wielded influence and therefore they should be exemplary to subordinates.

Ms Maphorisa said it was critical for the executive leadership to meet sometime during the year to take stock.

“In many times I would encourage public officers to think like citizens and act like professionals,” said Ms Maphorisa.

The leadership seeks to address many key projects including the Sir Ketumile Masire Teaching Hospital as well as backlog and access to quality healthcare. ENDS