10 Mar 2020

Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Lemogang Kwape says provision of quality healthcare services is one of government’s top priorities.

Presenting his ministry’s over P8 billion budget proposals for 2020/2021 financial year in Parliament on Monday, Dr Kwape said the provision of quality universal health service was aligned to the global call towards Universal Health Coverage target 3.8 of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG).

Dr Kwape said out of the ministry’s total budget proposals, over P7.7 billion was for recurrent budget while over P358 million was for development budget.

The recurrent budget proposals, Dr Kwape said, were aligned and prioritised as per the new organisational structure, which resulted in consolidation of duplicating functions and renaming of departments.

He explained that the Department of Health Services Management had been allocated the largest share of over P6.7 billion to enable coordination and facilitation of operations for all government healthcare facilities across the country.

Such facilities include Central Medical Stores, which coordinates procurement of drugs and medicines as well as distribution and logistics.

Dr Kwape noted that part of the funds shall finance operational expenses at the National Health Laboratory, Sir Ketumile Masire Teaching Hospital and Botswana Medical Regulatory Authority.

The second largest share of over P733 million was proposed for the ministry headquarters activities.

Dr Kwape indicated that the major items to be covered included medical aid subscriptions for all civil servants and pensioners, as well as replacement and maintenance of vehicles comprising of Emergency Medical Services.

He noted that the remaining balance of P263 million would be shared among three departments of Health Inspectorate, Health Policy Research and Development and Health Services Monitoring and Evaluation as well as Quality Assurance.

Under the development budget, the largest share of P355 million was allocated to the Department of Health Services Management to fund infrastructure projects under hospital services and primary healthcare service programme.

The minister told the House that P219 million of the proposed budget would specifically finance construction of Shakawe and Moshupa hospitals, refurbishment of old hospitals (Maun and Scottish Livingstone), designs of Gumare and Tutume primary hospitals and staff housing units.

Additionally, Dr Kwape indicated that the primary healthcare services programme would be allocated P135 922 500 for upgrading health posts and clinics at Toteng, Sepopa, Makgopana in Mochudi, Ngarange, Kauxwi, Dibete and D’kar.

He said funds requested would cover expenses for construction of staff houses across the country including for the donor-funded clinics at Kumakwane, Maboane and Maunatlala.

The remaining P3 624 210, Dr Kwape said would be allocated to the ministry headquarters for the development of healthcare standards, quality information management system and settlements of the final account for the completed staff houses at Block 6 in Gaborone.

Dr Kwape further noted that his ministry has had notable successes in the areas of access healthcare through extensive network of health facilities, HIV/AIDS UNAIDS 90-90-90 target for people living with HIV, maternal mortality reduction for three conservative years from 2016-2018.

Other successes noted were the reduction in both morbidity and mortality in those afflicted with cervical cancer.

However, he indicated that they had experienced some challenges, particularly with the increase in Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD), high rates of tuberculosis with an estimate of 6 000 people affected yearly, increased rates of malnutrition, poor state of health facilities, low functionality and availability of medical equipment, among others.

He said his ministry was also experiencing congestion in many health facilities across the country, adding that they would continue to implement different strategies such as increased engagement of the private sector.

Commenting on the budget proposals, MP for Good Hope/Mabule, Mr Eric Molale said there was need to review health strategy on prioritisation, arguing that priority should be given to expansion of existing hospitals with the right modern technology.

He said construction would be expensive for government.

For his part, Member of Parliament for Francistown South, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi applauded government for its preventative measures of HIV, but raised a concern at the high statistics of new infections, especially on a girl child.

Mr Mmolotsi appealed to government to identify children who were born with HIV before the Prevention Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) programme; saying those children  needed to be counselled.

The legislator further noted that the ministry should come up with a plan to curb new infections.

He also indicated that government was not doing much to retain manpower and ended up losing talent, hence the need to make efforts to retain specialised personnel. ENDS