Erongo healthcare system grapples with resource shortages

Healthcare workers in the Erongo region continue to face a lack of resources and severe understaffing.

This was one of the key issues raised at a stakeholder engagement meeting on the state of healthcare services at Swakopmund on Thursday.

At the meeting, the Society for Family Health shared data they collected through interviews with the community members making use of various clinics in the region. SFH community-led monitoring liaison officer Basson Haakuria highlighted the shortage of healthcare professionals as a key challenge.

“Too few healthcare workers put the whole system under strain. Staff face heavier workloads and burnout, patients wait longer and the risks of mistakes rises. This reduces access to quality care and lowers trust in the health system,” his report states.

Many of the professionals in attendance shared that they have been experiencing this strain first-hand.

Department of correctional services public health nurse Saima Nghinamundova says she was left to care for approximately 300 inmates on her own over the past two months.

She also raises alarm over a lack of pharmaceutical resources, including medication that could be life-saving in an emergency.

“It’s so challenging that we don’t have emergency medications,” she says.

“If we have a diabetic coma or a hypertensive crisis, we take them to the public hospital. We have to prepare security and then pass through this and that office for you to get out of the facility; regardless of the condition of the inmate. It’s very challenging,” she adds.

One factor contributing to this strain is the withdrawal of funding by the United States through the Pepfar programme.

A nurse representing the Walvis Bay Corridor Group’s wellness service programme says they have had to reduce the frequency of their outreach activities. The programme plays a vital role in providing HIV-AIDS and other primary healthcare services to vulnerable communities such as sex workers through roadside wellness centres and mobile clinics.

Unfortunately, she reports that they’ve struggled with staffing since the aid cut, making it difficult to continue their mission.

“I am currently alone in the clinic as a registered nurse, so I’m the one at the health centre and I’m the one conducting the outreach. It’s still a burden on us,” she says.

Erongo regional health director Anna Jonas says these issues could be further exacerbated as funding contracts expire with the end of the United States financial year in September.

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