A Princess decrowned, a glory faded

From its establishment as one of the first landmarks in the fledgling capital, Princess Marina Hospital has watched as the city burgeoned around it.

From a population of 5,000 people at Independence, the city now has more than 300,000 residents with an ever-deepening complexity of health care needs, over and above epidemics such as HIV/AIDS. Princess Marina’s age can be seen in that when it was established, the capital city was still known as Gaberones, a colonial misspelling of the word Gaborone, which would be adopted two years after the hospital opened its doors.