BDP Govt's defective health care sentencing Batswana to death
Botswana National Front (BNF) has expressed concern over the shortage of medicine and pills in hospitals across the country.
For some time now the country has been hit by a shortage of drugs with the situation taking a turn for the worst last year. The critical shortage of most pharmaceutical supplies in the country remains “dire and indeed unsatisfactory”, because there are still many Batswana who are unable to access all the medications prescribed for them.
Late last year, Minister of Health Dr. Edwin Dikoloti indicated that the situation is being attended to and might be corrected by the end of December 2022, however, he admitted that pharmaceutical supply into the country is very low and intervention measures have not helped to address the issues completely.
The minister told Parliament in November 2022 that some progress was made in securing certain medications since his last winter address especially regarding procurement of most vaccines, including vaccines for children and other Extended Programme of Immunisation (EPI) vaccines, Anti-Retroviral Drugs (ARVs), anti-diarrhoeal medications and Tuberculosis (TB) medications; all of which are currently in good supply.
However, what continues to be of great concern is the current acute shortage of critical medications, especially for chronic conditions. Cancer drugs for example, are currently at 44 percent availability.
BNF Secretary General Ketlhalefile Motshegwa this week indicated that with this state of health sector Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) led Government is sentencing people to death. He pointed out that the BDP government
is responsible for and must be held for these deaths.
According to Motshegwa, most people die not because of severity of their illness but due to lack of proper medical attention attributed to shortage of medicine and relevant equipment.
“Our economy is capable of giving top-notch or world class public health system in terms of infrastructure, equipment, personnel and medication. This is failing under BDP as they don't have the humanity to save people ‘s lives.
“Funds that could be used for quality public health system are diverted to corruption which is collapsing this country to the detriment of Batswana,” he said. Motshegwa added that Batswana should be wise and not accept this mediocre service and defective public health system.
Minister Dr. Dikoloti had indicated that as a result of the acute shortage of critical drugs, government has had no option but to refer patients to private health facilities leading to a sharp rise in cost from P300 million to about P1billion.
He explained that the protracted Russia/Ukraine war has worsened the situation. Dikoloti said that the long term strategy of attracting pharmaceutical manufacturing has the advantages of enhancing consistent local pharmaceutical supply, citizen skills transfer and job creation.
In response to Dr. Dikoloti’s statement on the state of drugs and medical supplies in the country, Botswana Nurses Union (BONU) said the issue of drug and medicine shortage has been in existence for so many years and in recent years it has escalated to a level of “disaster”.
The Union’s President, Peter Baleseng said the 44 percent that the minister referred to renders the situation less serious to moderate. BONU said it is worried about the embarrassing situation in which nurses have been watching helplessly as patients deteriorate in the absence of cancer and other chronic illness drugs and medications.
“Health care workers especially nurses feel the brunt more than anyone else because in all levels of the health care system, the community expects to get full health care services from them.
“When there are no drugs in facilities, nurses are often held accountable and liable to this shortage by the community and in some instances abused. Despite that, nurses continue to work and deliver care under these horrendous conditions because they are part of the community,” the union leader said.
He challenged the minister to up his game. According to Baleseng, the failure to procure drugs and medications continues to bring tension between the community and nurse which cannot be tolerated.