Residents decry doctor shortage in Gabane clinics
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Thursday May 28, 2015 15:38
The residents registered their complaint about the situation at the fourth Princess Marina Hospital (PMH) Community Pitso held here recently.
PMH officials held the community pitso to share with the community specialist services offered at the hospital. The hospital also educated and informed the community about admission procedures at Accident and Emergency and booking system.
The medics also conducted screening for various ailments like diabetes, cardiac diseases, kidney diseases and hypertension among others. The hospital also wanted feedback from the community about its services.
Gabane north Village Development Committee (VDC) chairperson, Baby Chalebgwa said their village faced a number of challenges in the health sector.
She said that they have two clinics that are unable to fulfill the village’s population health needs.
“One clinic cannot offer most of the services while the only clinic that we consider better is outside the village. It is not useful to many residents.
“People are always crowded at this clinic, which also makes the job difficult for the under-staffed health workers,” she announced.
Chalebgwa added that one of the greatest challenges the villagers faced was shortage of doctors in both clinics. She said they had one doctor who visited the clinic occasionally.
“As a result patients end up being referred to either Lesirane clinic at Tsolamosese, which also cannot be relied upon with the doctor’s unavailability.
“The patients would then be referred to Nkoyaphiri where they can still suffer the same fate,’ said Chalebgwa.
She said that resulted in some patients losing hope and ending up staying home, more especially the ones with chronic ailments.
Chalebgwa also pointed out that seeing that most people in the village stopped seeking medical services from the clinics due to these challenges, VDCs have been conducting door-to-door consultations and educating people on the importance of taking care of their health.
She called on the government to upgrade their clinics to include other health services and bringing them two or four doctors to put an end to the sending back and forth of villagers with no help received.
A resident, Tshegofatso Majafa complained about taking his prescriptions from PMH in Gaborone every month, which meant using money for transport to and from the hospital.
He called on the Ministry of Health (MoH) to avail adequate drugs in their clinics.
The residents also called on the hospital to come up with innovative ways to curb long queues and overcrowding.
They called for the improvement of their medical facilities, availability of doctors and medicines in their clinics.
PMH officials promised that they would do their best to improve services. They also told the residents that there was a countrywide shortage of doctors, but nevertheless promised to pass the message to relevant authorities at MoH.