19 Mar 2020

Tutume District Health Management Team (DHMT) is said to be on high alert in the wake of the Coronavirus.

Briefing a district development committee meeting in Tutume on March 18, DHMT head, Dr Irvin Kgetse said they had put measures in place at all heath facilities in the sub-district from two primary hospitals in Tutume and Gweta to clinics and health posts, across all villages.

Dr Kgetse noted that they had also trained almost all their staff members, including their support staff, who included drivers and cleaners, adding that they had also trained and even provided the 10 private clinics with proper health masks, which they could not get in the market.

 He further said they had identified a unit at Tutume Primary Hospital as an isolation place for anyone showing symptoms and/or people who would have travelled or gotten in contact with someone from affected countries.

Furthermore, Dr Kgetse pointed out that they had reached out to schools, government departments, businesses and churches as well as addressing kgotla meetings across all the 29 villages in the sub-district as a way of maximising the number of people the message could reach.

He stated that because some villages such as Maitengwe, Dagwi, Changate and Goshwe’s proximity to the border with Zimbabwe, they had also trained dikgosi and other village structures such as village development committees and village extension teams to deal with illegal immigrants.

In places such as Nata and Dukwi where there was often an influx of heavy trucks staying over on their way to Kazungula border, he said they had also formed committees, which would be monitoring the trucks and spreading awareness on the pandemic to them.

Meanwhile, deputy district commissioner for Tutume sub-district, Ms Utlwanang Kerekang said by Tuesday this week, 17 Zimbabwean illegal immigrants had been arrested at Maitengwe and deported.

She thus noted that this was a huge challenge experienced in the efforts to put up preventative measures against Coronavirus.  Ends