First, “during the 1920s, the Bangwaketse pioneered the creation of a universal health service …universal” meaning that every man, woman and child in Gangwaketse had health coverage, from birth to death. How was the scheme financed, how was it administered and what kinds of health services were included? More information please. Second, “in the 1950s, through the efforts of Dr Alfred Merriweather, Botswana residents became the first people in the world to be totally inoculated with penicillin.”
How was this possible? From where was finance obtained? How could a single, small mission hospital have provided such a national service? No outreach programmes then existed, the medical service was rudimentary, most people lived in remote and inaccessible settlements, there were no facilities for the storage and transport of penicillin, and there were no trained field workers. In the 1960s, there was an outbreak of measles which, it was reported, had been responsible for the deaths of a number of children. Working then for the Christian Council, I told Dr Standing, the Director of Medical Services, that Church World Service, NY would provide vaccines were he to make a request. Initially he declined, insisting that to ask for outside help would be to publicly recognise a problem that could not be overcome – thus aggravating the situation. How did Dr Merriweather overcome such an attitude? More information please. Third, “Bakwena regiments adopted modern conical bullets before the militaries of America, Britain and Russia”. Perhaps so.
