Health on Hold: Pill-less Times
Tuesday June 23, 2026 12:19
Botswana’s medicine shortage is no laughing matter, but sometimes humour is the best way to highlight the absurdity.in a nice packet of rooibos tea instead?’ It’s almost like medicines in Botswana have gone on safari — rare sightings, everyone whispers when they appear, and if you’re lucky enough to catch them, you guard them like treasure. It’s almost comical how governments sometimes try to ‘spin’ a crisis into a success story. In Botswana’s case, the shortage of medicines has been met with a kind of PR gymnastics that feels like watching someone try to hold up a breaking dam with a can. Officials proudly announce, 'We have secured a shipment of vital medicines!' — only for it to turn out to be two boxes of cough syrup and a lonely packet of paracetamol.
Citizens are told to ‘remain calm’ while pharmacies resemble empty shelves at a Black Friday sale. More and more, the procurement departments seem to have given up on competency. My journey to find my BP medication involved visiting four government clinics and coming up with nothing. It felt less like healthcare and more like a Diacore Marathon challenge where you run all day and your time still doesn’t qualify for a medal. Armed with determination (and rising BP readings), I marched into Clinic One. The pharmacist smiled apologetically: 'Stock finished'. Clinic Two greeted me with a handwritten sign that might as well have said, ‘Abandon hope, ye who enter here.’ Clinic Three: This one felt promising. The nurse checked the shelves and then whispered: 'We had medicine yesterday... but it is gone'. Apparently, paracetamol now has legs. Clinic Four: The queue was longer than a ticket line at the National Stadium during World Relays, only for the shelves to reveal... nothing.
Not even a lonely Wintergreen tub hiding in the corner. The pharmacist gave me that wry smile that they have been taught at the Stock Out College and referred me to the next clinic. By the time I got to the fourth clinic, my BP readings had climbed to critical levels. My Mathematics kicked in. Fuel has become very expensive ever since some international powers started buzzing around the Straits of Hormuz like caffeinated mosquitoes arguing over who has the right to control what is now the most-stressed water puddle. I was fast running out of fuel. Or out of life even! My fuel gauge stopped being a helpful feature and started looking like a bomb's countdown timer. The city was fast running out of clinics too, and I decided to cut my losses and go home and look to the Almighty to save what is left of my life. Botswana’s medicine shortage has turned every kitchen into a pharmacy and every auntie into a chief medical officer. The new national motto? ‘If it grows, it cures'.
People who have never set foot in Pharmacy School have now become instant pharmacists. Forget complicated chemistry and biology lessons — if you own a kettle and a garden, congratulations, you’re now a certified pharmacist. Donkey milk, donkey soap, donkey tea... at this rate, the donkey itself is the new universal cure. Side effects may include braying at odd hours. My wife has prescribed hibiscus tea for hypertension? We’re literally drinking bouquets now. Next step: roses for migraines, lilies for back pain, etc. Soursop, African potato, Moringa — making its 543rd comeback tour, like Franco’s band that refuses to retire — are among the prescriptions. Basically, we are now enrolled in the Kitchen Pharmacy Program. Almost everyone! For comments, feedback and insults email inkspills1969@gmail.com) Thulaganyo Jankey is a training consultant who runs his own consultancy, providing training in BQA-accredited courses. His other services include registering consultancies with BQA and developing training courses. Contact him on 74447920 or email admin@ultimaxtraining.co.bw