10 May 2021

Mahalapye West Member of Parliament Mr David Tshere says there is need to revive the Mahalapye District Hospital advisory Committee as it could come in handy in tackling challenges faced by the hospital.  

He said this during his recent  visit to the hospital, which was prompted by constituents’ complaints about poor services at Mahalapye District Hospital.

Briefing the MP, the hospital Superintendent, Dr Maxwell Mungisi, said Mahalapye District Health Management Team (DHMT) serviced forty villages with an estimated population of  118 875, according to the 2011 population census.

The hospital Superintendent said shortage of staff was a setback, noting that they have 11 doctors  against the 20 needed. 

He said while they offer orthopedic services, they were burdened as they operated with one orthopedic doctor, despite the sizeable number of patients seeking orthopedic services.

Dr Mungisi said in situations where they did not have specialists’ services, they made referrals to other institutions such as Sekgoma Memorial Hospital, Nyangagwe Referral Hospital and Princess Marina Hospital.

He said for effective services delivery, there was need for a conducive environment, but said such was defeated by lack of equipment. He added that failure to provide patients with warm water frustrated their efforts of providing estimable care.

Giving update on COVID-19 in the sub-district, Dr Mungisi said they recorded 2 522 positive cases, with 2 385 recoveries, 108 active cases, 27 in isolation facility while  81 were home isolated. He said 29 COVID-19 related deaths were recorded in the sub-district. Despite the challenges, Dr Mungisi said there were notable achievements.

“Mahalapye District Hospital continued to grow as a training hub, we offer Medical Internship Training (MIT) programme, Post Graduate training in Family Medicine by School of Medicine of the University of Botswana,” he said.  He also stated that phase 1 of COVID-19 vaccination was successfully carried out and would continue this month following the arrival of the Sinovac vaccine.

Responding to the hospital Supt, MP Tshere said as a secondary health care facility, the hospital needed to have equipment and enough staff.

Although the hospital has a biomedical technician, the area MP emphasised on the need to have a biomedical engineer, stating that operating a big hospital without a biomedical engineer was risky. MP Tshere promised to present their challenges in the next Parliament sitting. Ends