Youth friendly health clinics for F’town

Government through the District Health Management Team (DHMT) has come up with an initiative to set up youth-friendly clinics in Francistown.

Area L and Areas S health posts in the Francistown East constituency will be turned into such clinics. Area Member of Parliament (MP) Buti Billy has praised the initiative and the potential it holds for the constituency. He explained that the initiative came about after it was realised that the health posts cannot be upgraded into fully-serviced clinics.

He said the clinics would be run by the youth to create an enabling environment for them to test for some of the diseases they would normally not do (such as HIV/AIDS), when in the presence of elderly nurses. Buti said the clinics will help the youth to feel at ease and take responsibility for their health.

The clinics will not only benefit the youth, but the adults living in the areas especially that the clinics will have dedicated doctors. The MP said this will cut down the costs of travel to and hassles of queueing at Nyangabgwe Hospital.

However Buti disclosed that the DHMT announced the initiative at the previous full council meeting without consulting him first. He said he later consulted his constituency and apologised on behalf of DHMT. He said that even though there was no consultation people are happy about the youth friendly clinics which will soon be introduced.

Dr. Gobezie Solomon, Co-coordinator of DHMT differed with the MP saying that the initiative was just a proposal because the facilities are too small to be expanded into clinics. However he said that the proposal is yet to be discussed between the FCC and the Ministry of Health.