18 Mar 2019

Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Alfred Madigele said his ministry has awarded a tender for the supply of Computerized Tomography (CT) scanners for Letsholathebe II Memorial Hospital and Mahalapye District Hospital on December 18, 2018 through Public Procurement and Assets Disposal Board (PPADB).

Responding to a question in Parliament on March 14, Dr Madigele said in line with the ministry vision of upgrading some district hospitals, two other hospitals that would also be equipped with the CT scanners were Scottish Livingstone and Sekgoma Memorial Hospital.

He said the equipment would be delivered to the respective facilities in the financial year 2019/2020.Dr Madigele stated that the scan was important with regards to disease control as it aided with minimal or non-invasive patient diagnosis of various diseases.

He added that it was also used for planning surgeries on cancer staging.The minister also indicated that there were functional CT scanners currently at Nyangabgwe Referral Hospital and Princess Marina Referral Hospital.

He further explained that emergency cases were mostly done immediately and noted that the minimum waiting time was one week for inpatients and maximum of two months for outpatients.Furthermore, he said, he was not aware of patients who died while waiting to be done CT scanning.

Member of Parliament for Boteti East, Mr Sethomo Lelatisitswe had asked the minister to appraise the house on the names and numbers of health facilities with computerized Tomography scanners in the country.

MP Lelatisitswe had also wanted the minister to state the minimum and maximum waiting period for patients undergoing scan.He further wanted to know the importance of the scan with regards to disease control and monitoring, again if it was true that many patients passed on while on waiting list.

Mr Lelatisitswe said if so, the minister should state the number of patients who passed on in the past five years and also explain why government could not increase the CT scan equipment to other District Hospitals.ENDS