Over P60m annually for Pharmacy posts
The Ministry of Health is expected to spend over P60 million annually in salaries of Pharmacy Technicians, Principal Pharmacy Technicians, Senior Pharmacists and Principal Pharmacists ll, that is, if all posts advertised this week are filled.
The Ministry advertised in total over 500 posts, following intense disruptions to service delivery in the public health space, as a result of issues concerning health professionals’ welfare, in particular concerns by the Botswana Nurses Union (BONU) that their members’ continued dispensing of medications could offend certain legislations.
The Union therefore instructed their members to stop dispensing medications. Nurses and midwives stopped dispensing medications from the beginning of July last month.
Assistant Minister of Health, Sethomo Lelatisitswe informed Parliament this week that the Ministry legal teams have been instructed to look at the laws for any possible remedy.
However, they have also embarked on an aggressive recruitment exercise for Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians.
“I cannot deny that this has affected service delivery in our health facilities. This is indeed unfortunate because, Batswana suffered some months ago, when there were no medications in the country and they are suffering again now, when medications are now available,” he said.
According to Lelatisitswe, so far, more than 100 Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians have been recruited to help dispense medications in public health facilities.
“This short term arrangement has severely inconvenienced our people and has in some cases caused congestion at health facilities as people wait longer to get their medications,” Lelatisitswe conceded.
The Assistant Minister however is worried that there are only a few Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians in the market, therefore in the coming weeks, the Botswana market is expected to be exhausted.
He added that the ministry would still not be able to replace all nurses and midwives that have been dispensing medications from as long ago as the health system started operations years ago.
“Our local tertiary institutions do not produce enough Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians who can be engaged to serve our people. We need close to 1 000 Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians to have all our clinics and health facilities adequately covered,” Lelatisitswe said.
He added that given the shortage of these professionals in the market, including regionally, it may take up to five years to have these numbers, if we were to just rely on recruitment of Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians.
As far as grievances advanced by the Botswana Doctors Union regarding the conditions of their work, Lelatisitswe told Parliament Government has since successfully negotiated and agreed with the Union for among others,
payment of call allowance.
He added that Government was not able to reach an agreement with the Doctors Union on all contentious issues last week, but that he remains hopeful that both the ministry and doctors will eventually find common ground.
The Assistant Minister also updated the house on availability of medications in the country, stating that significant improvement has been registered in medications availability in the country.
He said currently, there is an acceptable supply of all major medications that were not available for most of last year and the beginning of this year. These include medications for chronic conditions like Hypertension, Cancer, Diabetes and others.
He added that most vaccines like those for children and other Extended Programme of Immunisation (EPI) vaccines, Anti-Retroviral Vaccines (ARVs), anti-diarrhoeal medications and Tuberculosis (TB) medications, have largely been available in good supply, even during the time when the situation was dire for other medications.
The Assistant Minister assured the nation that Government has been largely successful in bringing medications to the country, despite the difficult situation that we were experiencing, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We remain committed to seeing Batswana receive quality health services and within a reasonable time. We will not rest until all these are in place,” he said, further appealing to all health care workers, to exercise restraint.
“They come far with our health system. They have sacrificed a lot in the past, including recently during the COVID-19 pandemic. We cannot forget the huge sacrifices they made for all of us to survive.
“We also cannot ignore any challenges and concerns that they have in their conditions of service including legal impediments as the case may be,” he said.