Private Hospital Starts Recruitment

By Lekopanye Mooketsi
Correspondent | Monday September 8, 2008 00:00

The promoters of the 330-bed facility have designed a website in which it has invited applications from health professionals.

Last week the hospital advertised jobs for nurses in local newspapers through a labour recruitment company. The nurses are supposed to start work in the second quarter of 2009. Nurses in Botswana have been leaving in droves for greener pastures abroad.

Recently, nurses working for government have been demanding that they should be paid the scare skills allowance.

Botswana has always been faced with a shortage of medical personnel and the country has been relying on expatriates. To address the situation, the University of Botswana (UB) has started to offer medical courses while government has granted scholarships to a number of Batswana to study medicine abroad.

The Bokamoso Hospital is a joint venture between the Botswana Public Officers Medical Aid Scheme (BPOMAS) and the Pula Medical Aid Fund Trust (PULA).  The two schemes established the non-profit making Bokamoso Private Hospital Trust, which is developing the hospital. The trust has entered into a development and management contract with partners from the United States namely, Operating Room International Limited Liability Company (ORI) and Vanderbilt University Medical Centre (VUMC). 

At the ground breaking ceremony sometime ago, the Minister of Health, Lesego Motsumi said 30 beds in the hospital are earmarked for a semi-autonomous rehabilitation centre. It will provide rehabilitation services for trauma, cardiac and orthopaedic patients. 

It is expected that the hospital will offer specialised medical care services that have not been available in the country.

Bokamoso Hospital will be the second private hospital in Gaborone after the Gaborone Private Hospital, which opened in the early 1990s. 

The opening of the hospital is expected to ease congestion at government referral health facilities like the Princess Marina Hospital and to save patients the costs and inconvenience of travelling abroad for specialised medical attention.