How long has it been that the general public keeps complaining more and more about the state of Princess Marina Hospital; the same grievances year-in, year-out and none of them gets addressed?
My general thought is that these problems are way bigger, way deeper than anyone of us vaguely thinks. In all the times I have been to the hospital, there has not been one day where I found free-flowing service to the patients, registration being done effortlessly with no hurdles, every single patient in attendance being given their medical prescription in full, staff not complaining about shortage of consumables and some equipment in the facilities and many other fusses.
Every time you visit that hospital, at least one or more of these predicaments will be in every patient’s mouth as you enter the facilities.
One gets to wonder if proper analysis of the root causes of all these is ever done, and if so, why do the problems keep persisting? Someone or some people are definitely sleeping on their job but is there accountability for any of those people?
The explanation we might get is that the issues are being dealt with internally by those responsible, but where is the outcome of that?
Why is it taking so long for such seemingly easy-to-solve issues to be attended to? People’s lives are continuing to get jeopardised by such indecision.
When you sit down and have a conversation with anyone working in the health system of Botswana, every single one of them always has something new to complain about, and not just about Princess Marina Hospital.
A couple of weeks ago there were back-and-forth court cases between the BONU and the government about issues that in my opinion should have long been dealt with so that everybody moves on, but no, the norm in our system is to drag them out for as long as the Pope was an altar boy.
We are slower than a snail on sleeping pills when it comes to dealing with issues of major concern in this country.
There are reported issues of people in the Emergency Rooms not being attended to well on time, admitted patients being left there to fend for themselves and some of the staff just walking about not giving a single ounce of care to those patients.
When you listen to people calling live on radio stations, complaining on social media and just through having conversations with them, you will get a very clear picture of the state of that hospital.
Could one of the problems also be that some or most of the stuff are demotivated? If so, what is causing that? Do they make it clearly known to their superiors that they are demotivated? If so, what are the superiors doing about that?
Because it makes zero sense for someone to wake up in the morning, leave your home “to go to work at the hospital” then not do what is supposed to be done at the hospital. It makes absolutely no sense.
It is in fact a huge indicator of a big problem brewing that needs urgent attention. The general rule of thumb is that every time a hospital employee does not do their job on time, at least one patient is going to suffer one way or another as a result of that.
Take for example a simple scenario where an employee who is supposed to throw garbage out does not do that job or does it later than they are supposed to. It means more garbage will keep piling up in the facilities, meaning the facilities are less and less clean, which could lead to a huge number of risks.
Now imagine what happens if a nurse or a doctor does not attend to patients on time. I honestly do not want to imagine that. But that is just the surface of it. A well-run system has to be able to track down the causes of such and eliminate them promptly.
What is happening now is that those responsible are just kicking the dirt down the road for the next person to encounter it and do the same as well; “kick it down the road too bro”.
They say you do not need a weather man to tell you it’s raining, same as none of us needs a newspaper report to tell us the situation at the biggest hospital in this country is dire. The sooner it gets managed, the better for everyone.
STRIVE FOR A HEALTHIER AFRICA. Kenneth T. Photlokwe MSc Medicine (Vaccinology) – Wits Facebook: On Health with Kenneth Photlokwe
My general thought is that these problems are way bigger, way deeper than anyone of us vaguely thinks. In all the times I have been to the hospital, there has not been one day where I found free-flowing service to the patients, registration being done effortlessly with no hurdles, every single patient in attendance being given their medical prescription in full, staff not complaining about shortage of consumables and some equipment in the facilities and many other fusses.
Every time you visit that hospital, at least one or more of these predicaments will be in every patient’s mouth as you enter the facilities.
One gets to wonder if proper analysis of the root causes of all these is ever done, and if so, why do the problems keep persisting? Someone or some people are definitely sleeping on their job but is there accountability for any of those people?
The explanation we might get is that the issues are being dealt with internally by those responsible, but where is the outcome of that?
Why is it taking so long for such seemingly easy-to-solve issues to be attended to? People’s lives are continuing to get jeopardised by such indecision.
When you sit down and have a conversation with anyone working in the health system of Botswana, every single one of them always has something new to complain about, and not just about Princess Marina Hospital.
A couple of weeks ago there were back-and-forth court cases between the BONU and the government about issues that in my opinion should have long been dealt with so that everybody moves on, but no, the norm in our system is to drag them out for as long as the Pope was an altar boy.
We are slower than a snail on sleeping pills when it comes to dealing with issues of major concern in this country.
There are reported issues of people in the Emergency Rooms not being attended to well on time, admitted patients being left there to fend for themselves and some of the staff just walking about not giving a single ounce of care to those patients.
When you listen to people calling live on radio stations, complaining on social media and just through having conversations with them, you will get a very clear picture of the state of that hospital.
Could one of the problems also be that some or most of the stuff are demotivated? If so, what is causing that? Do they make it clearly known to their superiors that they are demotivated? If so, what are the superiors doing about that?
Because it makes zero sense for someone to wake up in the morning, leave your home “to go to work at the hospital” then not do what is supposed to be done at the hospital. It makes absolutely no sense.
It is in fact a huge indicator of a big problem brewing that needs urgent attention. The general rule of thumb is that every time a hospital employee does not do their job on time, at least one patient is going to suffer one way or another as a result of that.
Take for example a simple scenario where an employee who is supposed to throw garbage out does not do that job or does it later than they are supposed to. It means more garbage will keep piling up in the facilities, meaning the facilities are less and less clean, which could lead to a huge number of risks.
Now imagine what happens if a nurse or a doctor does not attend to patients on time. I honestly do not want to imagine that. But that is just the surface of it. A well-run system has to be able to track down the causes of such and eliminate them promptly.
What is happening now is that those responsible are just kicking the dirt down the road for the next person to encounter it and do the same as well; “kick it down the road too bro”.
They say you do not need a weather man to tell you it’s raining, same as none of us needs a newspaper report to tell us the situation at the biggest hospital in this country is dire. The sooner it gets managed, the better for everyone.
STRIVE FOR A HEALTHIER AFRICA. Kenneth T. Photlokwe MSc Medicine (Vaccinology) – Wits Facebook: On Health with Kenneth Photlokwe
