14 Dec 2023

 The Ministry of Health has partnered with the private sector to mitigate the existing gap in the implementation of the chronic medication dispensation programme.

Assistant Minister, Mr Sethomo Lelatisitswe told Parliament that partnering with the Botswana Public Officers Medical Aid Scheme would make chronic medication available to patients nationwide.

“This programme intends to ease congestion in government health facilities, thereby reducing the workload on the already limited pharmacy officers in the ministry,” Mr Lelatisitswe said.

The assistant minister, who was responding to a question from Nkange legislator, Dr Never Tshabang, noted that plans were underway to include ARVs in the arrangement.

He said the ministry had further embarked on employing temporary pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to augment the available ones.

He said the ministry had recruited a total of 11 temporary pharmacists and 142 pharmacy technicians since the beginning of the financial year.

The pharmacists had been issued with appointment letters while the pharmacy technicians were already on the field, he said.

He said the ministry currently had a total of 78 pharmacists across all three referral hospitals and 18 District Health Management Teams comprising district hospitals, primary hospitals and clinics.

“We also have 467 pharmacy technicians across government facilities, serving more than 600 clinics and hospitals”, he said and revealed that the current ratio of pharmacists per health facility was 1:10, which he admitted was insufficient.

“To address this, government has started local training of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in government and private institutions with estimated output of 35 pharmacists and 75 pharmacy technicians annually. Despite these efforts, it should be noted that the ministry continues to lose such professionals to the private sector,” he said.

Dr Tshabang had requested an update on the status of pharmacists in government hospitals and clinics and their ratio per facility, and whether the ratio was sufficient.

He also wanted to know what the ministry was doing to mitigate the gap if at all the ratio was insufficient. ends