Construction of private hospital starts next month

Speaking on behalf of Botswana Public Officers' Medical Aid Scheme and PULA Medical Aid Fund (PULA), Kabelo Ebineng of AFA told Mmegi yesterday that they intend to start constructing the hospital next month. They hope the hospital will start operations late next year. He said they were still waiting for licences and regulators to give them the go-ahead to start construction. The facility to be known as the Bokamoso Private Hospital will be located in Mmopane Block 1 just off the Gaborone-Molepolole road.

The hospital is meant to save patients the inconvenience and extra costs of seeking specialist medical care abroad, especially South Africa. It is also meant to improve social infrastructure. The hospital is expected to provide specialist services dealing with ischemic heart conditions, nephrology, neuro-surgery, oncology, accident and trauma, diagnostics and magnetic resonance imaging scan capability, among others. Ebineng said that not everyone wants to be taken to South Africa for medical care.

He said BPOMAS and Pula would be working with technical partners, the Operating Room International (ORI) and Vanderbilt University (medical centre) in Nashville, Tennessee, who will offer development assistance and run the facility. He said that the private hospital would be open to everybody including members of other medical aid schemes, provided that they can pay for services.

Though they would recruit staff locally and internationally, preference would be given to locals and Tswana speakers. This is because they believe the route to a diagnosis is faster and patients receive the right treatment promptly if they communicate with those who speak the same language without the need for an interpreter. Ebineng said they recognise they cannot employ Batswana only and there is a need to infuse foreign talent and recruit citizens working outside the country.

He said the hospital will be 200 to 230 -bed facility before the numbers rise to 300.

Ebineng said some employees will be accommodated near the private hospital. The hospital will have a nursery school and a day care centre to cater for those with young children. The two medical aid schemes came up with the idea of a hospital after realising that health care costs are increasingly becoming unsustainable both locally and internationally.