06 Mar 2024

Strengthening primary healthcare remains government’s priority, Minister of Health, Dr Edwin Dikoloti has revealed.

Presenting his ministry’s 2024/2025 budget proposal in Parliament on Monday March 4, Dr Dikoloti said revitalising primary healthcare would facilitate a shift from the current disease and institution focused health services towards empowering communities and promoting active community participation.

He said a functioning primary healthcare system had the ability to address the double epidemic of communicable and non-communicable diseases that had bedeviled Botswana and many low to middle-income countries. 

He added that it was the most cost effective way to achieve all the targets of Sustainable Development Goal number three.

He said 324 district mentors had been trained to coordinate integrated community-based health services in their respective districts, and that the capacity-building was bearing fruits as some districts had reintroduced home visits, which helped identify health issues at an early stage, hence reducing morbidity and mortality.

He said his ministry, in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), was developing a comprehensive primary healthcare strategy and its implementation roadmap as well as an investment case for primary healthcare.

The initiative, he said, would provide the necessary guidance in revitalising primary healthcare and that the completion of the documents was anticipated by October 2024.

In line with the government’s strategic direction of aligning district health services with local authorities, Dr Dikoloti said his ministry would increase district health management teams from the current 18 to 30.

He said smaller health districts would facilitate health provision that was focused on defined populations and that it would be more responsive in promoting universal health coverage.

Additionally, Dr Dikoloti said his ministry was committed to improving the nutritional status of the population. 

He said Batswana continued to suffer the double burden of malnutrition and that a portion of the population, especially children and other vulnerable groups, suffered from under nutrition while others suffered from overweight and obesity. 

He noted that underweight prevalence amongst children under five stood at 3.8 per cent in 2023, and that it was slightly above the national target of three per cent.

In addition, he said the demographic survey of 2023 revealed that 3.6 per cent of children aged below five and 33 per cent of adults were overweight.

To address the challenges, Dr Dikoloti said government was in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN to develop the first national food and nutrition policy, which was expected to be completed during the 2024/25 financial year.

He said the policy was aimed at harmonising nutrition action plans, goals and targets across all the relevant sectors. 

Dr Dikoloti also said his ministry was collaborating with SADC to develop a food fortification strategy for 2024-2028.

He noted that fortifying staple foods with essential micro-nutrients was an important part of a broad-based strategy to reduce malnutrition in all its forms. 

“The strategy will benefit local small, medium and large-scale food milling industries in advancing innovation in the fortification of foods such as wheat flour, maize meal, sorghum meal and edible oils,” he said.

In addition to preventative approaches such as supplementary feeding, Dr Dikoloti noted that his ministry capacitated health workers to manage children with acute malnutrition in all health facilities. 

He added that 160 health workers were trained on the identification and management of acute malnutrition while 146 community health workers were trained on simplified approaches.

He argued that the procurement of ready-to-use therapeutic products for treatment of moderate and severe acute malnutrition in outpatient and inpatient health facilities remained key to saving the lives of children. Ends