09 Mar 2025

When the new government took over power, the health fraternity was in an undesirable state and on the verge of collapse, says the Assistant Minister of Health Mr Lawrence Ookeditse.

Answering a question without notice last week, he said the Ministry of Health was faced with a dire shortage of ambulances as available fleet was dominated by aged ambulances experiencing constant breakdowns and costly to services.

The MP for Metsimotlhabe-Mmopane- Ms Helen Manyeneng had asked the minister to consider allocating an ambulance to Metsimotlhabe clinic as a matter of urgency given the recent incident at the village owing to the un-resourced clinic, therefore posing serious health threats.

Mr Ookeditse was concerned by a trend where quotes for servicing government fleet was unreasonably hiked, a trend he said negatively impacted health care systems. He said though desirable to have ambulances at all health facilities, it was impossible to provide for such, as government was faced by financial constraints.

He said only P10 million was earmarked for the procurement of ambulances in the coming financial year. Mr Ookeditse said due to budgetary constraints government was in difficult position to service ambulances that were currently packed.

Mr Ookeditse said government was working on rectifying challenges inherited from the previous government with hope of coming up with a working plan moving forward. He said Gaborone emergency medical services would where possible assist localities in its periphery such as Metsimotlhabe, even though it would not be enough.

“Let us admit that we do not have ambulances. The truth is we do not have this facilities, we are in an undesirable state. We have inherited a rotten system making it difficult to render the desired service to our people,” he said.

Ms Manyeneng said her question was prompted by dire situation in Metsimotlhabe and the constituency as a whole. She advised that government must not be comfortable with using shortage of funds as a blanket answer to all challenges of the society including health related ones.

She recollected an incident where a police officer was reported to have collapsed while on duty, who was then taken to Metsimotlhabe clinic only to wait for more than five hours to get an ambulance to attend to an emergency situation. Ms Manyeneng said the situation proved that Gaborone was not in a position to assist localities in its periphery even on emergency.

“I am not asking for a new ambulance, I am also aware that there are no funds, but there has to be a contingency plan to deal with emergency situation. My advice is that as a matter of urgency we must at least have an ambulance for clustered localities,” she said.

Mr Ookeditse said Ministry of Health proposed a budget of about P15 billion hoping to go a long way in addressing most of the health challenges including shortage of ambulances among others.

“For the P15 billion that we requested we got just around P9 billion. Therefore, with a minimal budget we are handicapped making it difficult to give an assurance on what we will be able to achieve with certainty. The situation is not good at all as it affected the whole country,” he said.

Mr Ookeditse concurred with Ms Manyeneng that the health fraternity needed immediate and adequate attention.

“The truth is we do not have enough ambulances. Those we have are very old, therefore we need to invest more on health care. We need to go all out and advocate for procurement of ambulances,” he said.

Mr Ookeditse said an average ambulance will cost about P1 million. He said where possible other health entities such as Med Rescue assisted, but at a cost. He said it was worth noting that when the UDC took overpower, government debt with private health practitioners was in excess of P1.5billion, making it difficult for other service providers to be reluctant in doing business with government.

“We need to do the best we can with the little we have, hoping that in the next financial year, the budget will give enough to double the fleet,” he said.

Mr Ookeditse said the situation was a result of financial leakage and wastage. He said there were cartels in place cutting across government looting millions of Pula. He said servicing a government vehicle will cost five time to what a private car will be charged. ENDS