BCL Mine closure squeezes DHMT votes
Onalenna Kelebeile | Tuesday February 28, 2017 17:12
The DHMT has now requested an amount of P200,000 on domestic vote, P300,000 on food vote, P300,000 on office supplies, P390,000 on non- communicable disease drugs as well as P164,000 on the ARV drugs vote.
This came to light last Friday when the DHMT made the presentation at a full council meeting at the Selebi-Phikwe Town Council (SPTC).
As a result of the mine closure 2,100 patients are to be transferred from the mine hospital to Selebi-Phikwe DHMT. One thousand one hundred patients are on ARVs while 1,000 are non-communicable disease patients.
The report also shows that nine patients who got injured under BCL are also transferred to DHMT that also pays some private practitioners for those patients.
By end of December 2016, 519 patients on ARV were transferred to DHMT and the number is expected to reach 1,100, while 232 non- communicable disease patients were transferred to DHMT by the end of December and the number is expected to reach 1,000.
It has also been shown that Selebi-Phikwe Government Hospital provides three services being medical service by physician, gynaecological services as well as surgical services.
The report stated that paediatric service is not offered because the paediatrician did not renew the contract. The services are said to have tremendously improved delivery with reduced referral costs.
Meanwhile, a milestone that DHMT has achieved is that there is no waiting list for HIV patients, all clinics in the district are dispensing and prescribing ARVs while customer satisfaction for IDCC has increased to 89 percent.
However, shortage of medical doctors impacts on service delivery while transport shortage impacts on follow-ups.
The challenge experienced is an influx of transfer-in patients from BCL Mine hospital.
The BCL hospital has been diverted to a private hospital that is open to all members of the community who either pay cash or use medical aid.