27 Nov 2024

To ensure access to comprehensive health services, government will roll out a National Health Insurance to enable Batswana to access acceptable health care.

The scheme, according to Minister of Health, Dr Stephen Modise would protect people from the financial consequences of paying for healthcare services out of their pockets, hence reducing the risks of them being pushed into poverty because of the health costs.

The minister, who was debating the State-of-the- Nation Address (SONA) on Tuesday, said the ministry was working to ensure necessary legislative operators were put in place to facilitate the commencement of such a scheme.

“We will expeditiously complete the health financing strategy, which will implement necessary health financing reforms, including the national health insurance system,” he said and explained that the move would allow the country to effectively pursue universal health coverage ideals.

Dr Modise also conceded that the country faced shortage of medicines and medical supplies owing to high costs, inadequate funding, and exacerbated by inefficiencies in the supply chain.

As such, he said the ministry was working to ameliorate this by revamping the procurement processes among others, adding that health sectors across the world had taken advantage of ICT and other technologies to digitise health services for improved access, which the country would pursue.

On infrastructure investment, he said it was common knowledge that most health facilities were in a serious state of disrepair though the President made a commitment to invest in health infrastructure, maintaining and modernising or upgrading existing health infrastructure.

“This represents a critical step towards strengthening healthcare systems and ensuring equitable access to quality healthcare services,” he said and admitted that robust infrastructure was the backbone of effective health care delivery.

He noted that the ministry was committed to training teams of healthcare workers in specialised areas, to ensure appropriate skills to address shortage of specialist services across the country.

Dr Modise, who is a Special Elected Member of Parliament said the ministry was therefore, currently reviewing Sir Ketumile Masire Teaching Hospital model to align it with its mandate of training health professionals and also that the ministry was in negotiations with the University of Botswana to decentralise training of the much needed health professionals through health facilities across the country.

For his part, Mmadinare Member of Parliament, Mr Ketlhalefile Motshegwa who also is the Minister of Local Government and Traditional Affairs when contributing to the SONA said the new government disdained corruption, and the fight against which should be done within the confines of the law hence appealed to people to allow the process to take its course.

He said institutions should be allowed to fight corruption without any political interference and oversight institutions deserved to be empowered to carry their mandate objectively.

Furthermore, he said the Umbrella for Democratic Change government inherited a failed state and collapsed economy owing to the Botswana Democratic Party economic policy failures, poor social services, high unemployment, poverty, high corruption and poor governance among others.

The UDC government, he said would come up with a transformative constitution which would do the reconfiguration of the state by among others, bringing the second generation of rights, enhance democracy, societal development and progress and separation of powers by arms of government.

He said the UDC must therefore, would create employment opportunities in order to address poverty as well as undertake accelerated infrastructure development and maintenance, commercialisation of agriculture and manufacturing of raw products to create jobs because the ruling party was committed to fulfilling its promises.

On constituency issues, he said Mmadinare was in favour of being a fully-fledged district as opposed to travelling to Bobonong for services. He also said Mmadinare faced shortage of water, problems brought about by human-wildlife conflict, drug and substance abuse, roads that are a in bad state and the need to expand the existing health facility. ENDS