18 Sep 2019

Some residents of Ngamiland have praised the government decision to upgrade Letsholathebe Memorial hospital to a referral facility.

In an interview, residents said they would now have access to more specialist services and the would not have to travel long distances to access such services in Francistown, Mahalapye and Gaborone.

They revealed that the move would not only be a cost saving measure, but would also afford patients, the chance of being nearer to their relatives for support.

One resident said at times patients suffered silently because of financial constraints while some missed appointments because of the distance challenge.

He also appreciated that there had been a significant improvement in access to specialist health services by the Ngami community.

Giving an update on district health issues during the recent North West District council session, the chairperson Mr Duncan Enga confirmed that the facility had now been upgraded to a referral hospital.

He said some equipment such as the CT scan machine had been installed at the hospital, adding that they were awaiting the completion of the radiation exposure testing before the facility became operational.

The house was also informed that the district aimed to improve its public relation and work ethics in an effort to improve the health management.

Mr Enga said the District Health Management Team (DHMT) would consult with the communities to improve its services.

Councillors also learnt that there was an ongoing outreach agreement with Nyangabgwe Referral Hospital (NRH) where a specialist surgical outreach team would visit the hospital every two months for a week.

The team comprises of a general surgeon, urologist and a neurosurgeon, which would provide out-patient and in-patient assessments and surgical interventions.

“This has greatly improved surgical care locally, as we have been operating without a general surgeon since 2017, and their interventions had greatly reduced the out-patient surgical waiting times. We expect this beneficial relationship to continue,” he added.

On the issue of drug supply from Central Medical Stores (CMS), the council chairperson stated that the supply remained at less than 40 per  cent in both sub-districts.

The overall availability was kept at 71.5 per cent in Ngami and at 86.1 per cent in Okavango.

Mr Enga said general drugs for critical diseases such as malaria, cardiovascular diseases; diabetes, tuberculosis (TB) and HIV were kept above 80 per cent, adding that the major problem was the district’s inability to attract direct supply to augment the supply by CMS.

The drug supply companies, he said were failing to honour the requested quota for the district, noting that drugs affected were antibiotics, painkillers and supplementary drugs. ENDS