03 Mar 2019

 Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Alfred Madigele says strategic leveraging on the private sector was one of the seven key focal areas his ministry intended to focus on with a view to meet service delivery expectations.

The other focal areas for the ministry’s roadmap are; decentralisation, universal health coverage, tertiary care, supply chain, research and staff welfare.

Minister Madigele said during his address to Nyangabgwe Referral Hospital staff recently in Francistown that as was the case in all successful public health systems, the role of the private sector in Botswana was important.

Involving the private sector, he said, would be done in a way that due care would be taken in order to control cost and protect the incentive to develop capacity in the public sector; where the focus of the private sector would be on the provision of scarce sub-specialty services such as vascular surgery, surgical oncology, pediatric hematology and others.

“In unique circumstances, basic specialised services such as gynecology and general surgery may be procured from the private sector to address service provision in underserved areas and to relieve critical backlogs,” he said.

Moreover, Dr Madigele mentioned that radiology, faculty’s management and hotel management services as additional areas where collaboration with the private sector could be expanded in order to enhance service delivery.

He however acknowledged that the shift towards greater utilisation of the private sector would come with risks.

“But on balance, it can be used to protect us from everyday tasks and operational headaches that have up till now frequently taken us away from our core mandate,” he said.

On decentralisation, Dr Madigele said the ministry had acceded to empowering District Health Management Teams (DHMTs) and transforming them into fully-fledged regional health authorities.

Doing so, he stated, was the best path for a more efficient and responsive governance of the public health system.

He said there were some important steps the ministry had taken already towards achieving the goal such as the appointment of substantive DHMT heads as per the restructuring process.

Increased budgetary autonomy and provision of essential personnel to set up self-sufficient administrative entities at district level, according to the minister, were among the many milestones that the ministry was yet to achieve.

“As we advance the autonomy of DHMTs, the main role of the ministry will be to formulate overall national health policy, define minimum packages, oversee health legislation and carry out monitoring and evaluation,” he stated. Ends