High turnover of specialists a headache
Pini Bothoko | Wednesday April 5, 2017 16:20
Health minister, Dorcus Makgato revealed in Parliament on Monday, saying that their endeavour to improve access to specialist services in the country has proven difficult.
This has been so, especially in efforts to replace five basic specialists being a physician, anesthesiologist, general surgeon, gynecologists and pediatrician in all of the district hospitals.
She, however, said due to the high turnover of specialist staff from public service and the difficulty in recruiting them, the Ministry experiences challenges in providing specialist services.
She was responding to Member of Parliament for Maun East, Kostantinos Markus who asked the Minister if she would consider deploying a physician, surgeon, additional midwives and orthopaedic surgeon specialists at Letsholathebe II Memorial Hospital.
Makgato said the resident physician’s and surgeon’s contracts came to an end in February and replacement will be made as soon as recruitment is complete.
he, however, said there is one family physician currently providing specialist services at the hospital.
She disclosed that the Letsholathebe II Memorial Hospital has 32 midwives out of a total of 50, deployed to different clinical areas in the hospital.
“There are plans to deploy more midwives to the facility, but this is frustrated by the acute shortage of midwives countrywide,” Makgato said.
She stated that the District Health Management Team (DHMT) management has been given authority to move around their staff, as they deem necessary.
She, however, said they have no plans to post an orthopedic surgeon to the hospital.
“Orthopedic cases are attended to by the surgeons and in the event that further specialist care is needed, the cases are referred to Mahalapye Referral Hospital,” Makgato said.
Markus also questioned the Minister if she was aware of the period taken for patients transferred to Nyangabgwe and Princess Marina referral hospitals to consult with specialists, if so what will the Ministry to address the problem and when.
Makgato said their target period to consult with a specialist on referral to both referral hospitals is two months, but due to shortage of specialists, average waiting time for specialists is about seven months in six specialist areas.
“The six specialist areas are physiotherapy, medicine, gynaecology, surgery, orthopaedics and urology.
This is attributed to the fact that specialists are not readily available in the job market and also the high turnover of specialists we experience in our establishment,” Makgato said.
She said they continue to recruit specialists and also enrol their medical officers into specialist training programmes being residency training at the University of Botswana to address the situation.
She also said she is aware of the faulty generator at Letsholathebe Memorial Hospital caused by leakage in its crankshaft seal and the air-conditioning situation in the hospital.
“The generator was put out of service for safety reasons and the seal is currently being replaced and according to our plan the generator will be fully operational at the end of this month,” Makgato said.
She said the major fault resulting in the malfunction of the air-conditioning system has been identified and is being rectified as the contractor is currently on site working on the system.
“Maintenance works being carried out on the air-conditioning system will restore the necessary cooling in the laboratories,” Makgato said.