07 Sep 2022

Good Hope Sub-district is suffering serious shortage of health personnel, especially doctors. Good Hope Primary Hospital chief medical officer, Dr Godfrey Simoonga told a kgotla meeting that the area MP, Mr Eric Molale addressed in Hebron recently, that the establishment register for the sub-district was 14, but was currently operating with only six doctors.

He further said out of the six doctors, two were supposed to leave soon because their contracts were coming to an end, yet only one was expected to report for duty.

This came after the village development committee chairperson, Ms Lemogang Phatuli made it known that their village needed at least one doctor, adding that their cluster covered more villages than others in the sub-district.

She said the few doctors at Good Hope Primary Hospital were not able to service the district well as the hospital was often  characterised by long queues.

“Sometimes patients come back home without having seen the doctor because of those long queues,” she said.

Residents also complained about shortage of drugs in health facilities around the constituency.

However, Dr Simoonga said they had made a request to the relevant authorities to address the situation and they were expecting a positive feedback.

Meanwhile, the area MP told the residents that the dirt road that passes through their village from Metlojane to Mokatako was not yet budgeted for.

He said they should, nonetheless, not lose hope because relevant authorities were still in negotiations trying to prioritise projects as the same stretch of road competed with other roads around the country such as Hukuntsi-Ncojane and Nokaneng-Xangwa.

Mr Molale said major roads such as Ramatlabama-Ramokgwebana and Lobatse-Mamuno would soon be installed with tollgates to generate revenue for their and other alternative routes’ maintenance.

He urged civil servants to align themselves to the government agenda, especially the re-set agenda so that they could carry out their duties diligently.

This came after some residents complained that some civil servants were not doing their jobs effectively. ENDS