21 Mar 2021

Since December the Ministry of Health and Wellness has experienced the death of two nurses and a doctor due to COVID-19, says Assistant Minister of Health and Wellness, Mr Sethomo Lelatisitswe.

Mr Lelatisitswe said the total number of doctors and nurses who contracted COVID-19 between December last year to date was 42 and 276 respectively.

He further said the pandemic had adversely affected all departments in the health care service delivery system from the corporate side, support staff and the main frontline health workers, being the doctors and nurses.

Mr Lelatisitswe also said it had negatively affected the daily running of all health facilities.

“COVID-19 has also negatively affected the delivery of emergency services,” he said.

He said the affected areas included the outbreak management itself, routine services, programmes, the supply chain and related services.

“Accordingly, waiting times for services by community are now longer despite the fact that the available health workers are continually working tirelessly to bridge the gaps caused by the absence of their colleagues due to isolation secondary to infection with COVID-19,” he said.

Mr Lelatisitswe noted that the safety of health workers was attained through the adequate supply of appropriate PPE to health workers who interfaced daily or regularly with clients at health facilities.

“This intervention is complemented by behaviour change interventions among health workers to strengthen adherence to protocols, especially social distancing during meal times,” he said.

The assistant minister said social distancing and adequate ventilation as well as shortening the amount of time spent in those areas and reducing the number of people eating in the same area all reduced exposures that would have been prevented by wearing of masks.

 “Virtual meetings are used more often than interface fora. We believe that this intervention drastically reduces exposures experienced when meetings contain many officers being physically in the same place at the same time.”

Mr Lelatisitswe also pointed out that virtual meetings reduced the amount of time of traveling between meetings and possibly being exposed to COVID-19 in the process.

He stated that shifting teams with no inter-mixing of team members working in the same environment was being implemented to prevent all workers in a single unit being exposed at the same time, thereby forcing the temporary closure of units and the consequent temporary unavailability of services.

He said there was ongoing engagement regarding how they could continuously improve the safety of workers and patients as well as the public.

Molepolole North MP, Mr Oabile Regoeng had wanted an update on the number of nurses and doctors who on account of COVID-19 complications had been in and out of isolation, quarantine and sick-leave or died between December 2020 to date.

Mr Regoeng further wanted the minister to state how the situation had affected public health service delivery in health facilities.

He also wanted the minister to state if there were any intervention measures in place to avert or mitigate any possible interruptions caused by COVID-19 on the smooth provision of health services in all public health facilities. ENDS