Africa-Press – Botswana. Residents of Gatampa have expressed mixed feelings over a tele-health facility which was donated to them by Hope Health International.
It has been at least four months since the facility, worth P600 million, was commissioned with the primary reason of taking services closer to the people and ensuring that the community gets quality health care.
Hope Health International, owned by Masego Gilbert is working together with other health companies being Zim Smart Villages of Dr Admore Jokwiro and TMR Pty of Dr Tshepo Rasekoba to bring health services closer to Gatampa residents through a tele-health service.
In an interview with BOPA recently, some residents have expressed hope that since the project was still on its infancy stage, with time everything would fall in place.
One resident Ms Josephine Atlholang said the facility was of good help since they no longer had to travel long distances to look for health services. She said that she was referred to go and see specialists through the diagnosis she got from the facility and her ailment was detected early.
Mr Keorapetse Modisaemang concurred with Ms Atlholang, and said the facility could serve them best if they could at least increase the number of patients that they attend to in a week.
He said the fact that they were expected to make bookings for them to be attended was something that the authorities needed to improve on.
Currently the facility attends to six clients on Tuesdays only, while child welfare services are provided once in a month. Services offered at the facility includes first aid, child welfare clinic and immunisation, hypertension screening and monitoring, and screening for diabetes.
For her part Ms Hilda Nkgageng, Chief nursing officer in the department of primary health care in Goodhope District Council said they were working with donors to rectify the situation.
She said an additional doctor was expected at the clinic expressing optism that service provision woul be improved to accomodate an increased number of patients being attended to as well as number of days in a week.
Ms Nkgageng said they were aware of internet access challenges, adding that the IT specialists were working on it. She said the services offered at the facility rely heavily on technology and artificial intelligence and gave the community access to quality health care and on time.
The area councillor, Mr Pule Gasewagae said the community must not despair since the facility was still new, emphasising that it was a pilot project. He expressed hope that with time everything will fall in place and the facility would not only serve the patients but students and the youth too because it has the WiFi facility.
He said that there was no doubt that it has bridged the gap that was created by lack of resources for those with no medical aid services and the elderly who could not travel long distances due to monetary constraints, saving time for both the patient and the doctor.
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