Africa-Press – Botswana. Government through the Ministry of Health has established a partnership with The Susan Thompson Buffet Foundation to assist improve the country’s healthcare system.
The move will come in handy after the withdrawal of foreign aid for various health
programmes since the country attained middle-income status. President Advocate Duma Boko hosted a delegation from the foundation in Gaborone on Friday, to appreciate and reaffirm what they had agreed upon; to improve the country’s healthcare system through the adoption of digitisation and improved funding.
He said their previous engagement in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia earlier this year was the beginning of the building blocks that would become a solid partnership between the foundation and government, through the Ministry of Health. President Boko said
government appreciated the foundation’s approach that any assistance, which they rendered must be on an understanding and commitment that the country receiving the assistance sought to be self-sufficient in order to take care of its own affairs.
The assistance is to help the country and not to create some form of dependency, President Boko said adding that Botswana aspired to be in a position to take care of itself and address the health needs of its people.
“As we begin on that course, we shall need some handholding, some form of assistance from here to a certain point and we appreciate immensely the generous offer by the foundation. The foundation does more than just bring financial resources, it also brings technical expertise and assist in crafting proposals to access the resources and to develop skills, which will then carry and sustain the programme that the country will be embarking on,” he said.
President Boko said African countries often moved far to benchmark when they could do so within the continent as certain things were happening in countries such as Rwanda, that were worthy of emulation by others. He said the biggest challenge for governments was not lack of ideas, but failure to translate the ideas into tangible results.
The Minister of Health, Dr Stephen Modise said after witnessing a lot that was done by Africans, it gave the government renewed hope on what it could do as well with its health system. He said one of the key areas of concern that he had shared with the foundation was on mental health.
Dr Modise said the country had a lot of cervical cancer cases with some people losing their lives hence believed that strengthening primary healthcare systems would bear positive results. The foundation’s vice president and head of international programmes, Dr Senait Fisseha said the partnership would address challenges crippling the country’s health system.
“We will be the catalytic partners to help unlock challenges and realise your visions. The current situation is like Africa does not have ideas and leaders because of the circumstances it was in as a result of debt and other lack of resources that are to be put into key sectors like education and health,” said Dr Fisseha.
She said it was important to consider investing in health as an investment and engine to economic drive adding that with help from the foundation, Botswana would be able to deliver high quality healthcare that the people would be proud of. She said with innovation and technology, delivering quality healthcare was possible even when resources were not enoughbecause one would be informed by data.
“The partnership will build the country’s ability to digitalise, with healthcare providers at the forefront and guided by data, take appropriate decisions in terms of distributing resources and do targeted interventions,” she said.
Dr Fisseha said the foundation was proud of Rwanda as it had given them what they could not find in most countries. She said over the last five to six years, the foundation had managed to build a lot of capacity in Rwanda using professionals in the health sector from Africa.
She said the foundation was ready to collaborate Botswana with Rwanda and even encourage south-to-south collaboration and create a centre of health excellence in the region.
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