18 Mar 2019

Letlhakane Primary Hospital does not have security guards but has three gatekeepers and two night watchmen who work on shifts, health and wellness minister, Dr Alfred Madigele has said.

Responding to a parliamentary question, Dr Madigele said an ideal primary hospital was expected to have 20 security guards.

“This is not peculiar to Letlhakane Primary Hospital, there are other primary hospitals which have not yet outsourced security services and are still operating with gate keepers and night watchmen,” he said.

The minister noted that night watchmen provide security for all staff members including nurses and doctors; however with the lack of capacity of the gate keepers and night watchmen their security was not assured.

Dr Madigele said the recent trends of attacks at health facilities indicated a threat to the health care officers.

He explained that the ministry had embarked on outsourcing of security services since 2013 on incremental basis due to budgetary constraints, and to date most of the districts had outsourced security services in exception of a few, adding that Letlhakane Primary Hospital would be considered in 2019/2020.

MP for Boteti East, Mr Sethomo Lelatisitswe asked the minister if he was aware that Letlhakane Primary Hospital does not have Security guards within the hospital but only gate keepers, and if so how many guards an ideal primary hospital such as Gweta, Thamaga or Kasane were expected to have.

Mr Lelatisitswe also wanted to know why it was peculiar to Letlhakane Primary Hospital, whether the nursing staff and doctors at Letlhakane were safe without guards and when security guards would be deployed to the hospital. ENDS