18 Mar 2020

Ministry of Health and Wellness is facing challenges of shortage of healthcare professionals across the country, Parliament has learnt.

Assistant Minister of Health and Wellness, Mr Sethomo Lelatisitswe said this in response to a question from Member of Parliament for Selebi Phikwe West, Mr Dithapelo Keorapetse.

Mr Lelatisitswe said the ministry was in the process of recruiting medical officers and specialists in the hope of addressing shortages.

He said they were also addressing shortages by exploring strategic partnerships with various organisations and countries through bilateral and multilateral agreements.

In addition, he said, University of Botswana continued to have both output of medical doctors and specialists, which would ultimately address the shortage.

In Selebi Phikwe, Mr Lelatisitswe said there was one specialist against expected minimum of five different specialists and nine out of the expected sixteen medical officers. He said the rest of the health professions were fairly staffed with shortages of one and maximum of two per cadre amongst the social workers and laboratory, pharmacy and dental officers.

The assistant minister further noted that in Selebi Phikwe DHMT, there are three pharmacists and eleven pharmacy technicians totaling 14 pharmaceutical officers. He said there was no shortage of dietician and physiotherapists.

MP Keorapetse had wanted to know the number of health professionals and their professions other than nurses at Selibe Phikwe DHMT.

He also wanted to know which professions or specialists were in shortage and what the ministry was doing to address the situation. Ends