Despite expired medicine at hospitals, expectant mothers sleeping on floors, as well as broken equipment in health facilities, minister of health and social services Kalumbi Shangula has praised Namibia’s “robust healthcare infrastructure”.
The minister was responding to opposition leader McHenry Venaani’s questions on the state of healthcare – and specifically the possibility of universal healthcare coverage in parliament – last week.
“… that includes a network of primary healthcare facilities, seamlessly connected through a referral network to secondary and tertiary healthcare centres,” Shangula said.
Venaani asked how the government ensures people have access to the healthcare they need when they need it and wherever they live – without suffering financial hardship.
About 15% of the country depends on private healthcare, while over 80% has access to healthcare services, he said.
In its current state, the minister said, the country’s healthcare system can accommodate universal health coverage to some extent.
“As can be observed, the Namibian health system has the ingredients of our current efforts to improve on what is in place, and to give it a new name of universal health coverage and formalise it.
“Namibia therefore satisfies the requirements of universal health coverage,” he said.
Namibia has one national referral hospital, three intermediate hospitals, 34 district hospitals, 44 healthcare centres, 280 clinics, and 9 996 outreach points.
Several patients at Windhoek Central Hospital have been forced to sleep on the floor of the hospital’s corridors, The Namibian has reported before.
Shangula said one of the measures to improve access to healthcare in the country is to ensure the availability of essential health products and equipment in healthcare centres and clinics, along with the availability of essential medicines in healthcare facilities, guaranteeing uninterrupted care.
Meanwhile, a visit by the parliamentary standing committee on gender equality, social development and family affairs to the Ondangwa Health Centre in the Oshana region in August uncovered that the centre has received damaged bottles of medicine from medical suppliers.
A visit by the parliamentary standing committee on health revealed that the Zambezi regional health directorate often runs out of medicine to effectively treat patients due to the central medical stores failing to supply them sufficiently.
The stores’ failure to meet their demand is one of the biggest challenges, the directorate has said.
The same committee has discovered that medicine and other clinical supplies worth N$20 million kept at the Rundu medical store are at risk of going to waste due to a dysfunctional cooling system at the hospital.
UNIVERSAL HEALTH COVERAGE
Venaani questioned the minister on progress with a policy on universal healthcare and whether this was feasible.
“When does the government envisage to fully implement a universal healthcare policy framework?” the lawmaker asked.
The draft policy framework has not reached the Cabinet yet, but Shangula believes a submission will be made in November or December.
Once approved, it will be implemented.
The minister said the private sector is not on board with this policy yet, but the mnistry is working on it.
“The private sector is being brought on board under universal health policy through funding and contracting to deliver specific services, outsourcing non-medical and ancillary services, and developing strategies for public-private sector collaboration, which are steps towards efficient service delivery,” Shangula said.
The minister said the ministry has invested in the construction of new healthcare facilities, and has renovated existing ones.
“We have also established a maternal waiting shelter to address the needs of expectant mothers, and to enable them to have access to a safe environment while awaiting delivery.
“We have developed minimum standards for medical equipment, conducted technology assessments, and updated equipment lists to enhance service quality,” he said.
On the other hand, expectant mothers at Eenhana hospital in the Ohangwena region sleep in the corridors, due to a lack of space at the facility.
Beds and mattresses are lined against the walls along the narrow corridors of the hospital’s maternity wards, where mothers lie, waiting to deliver.
John Hango, the health director of the Ohangwena region, says the hospital’s facilities need to be expanded, as it is overwhelmed by patients from all over Ohangwena and as far as Angola.
The Ohangwena region is the second-most populous after the Khomas region, with an estimated population of 280 199.
Since region has three hospitals, more than 30 clinics and 155 outreach points.
In February this year, mothers at Katutura Intermediate Hospital’s paediatric ward in Windhoek have regularly been sleeping on floors with their sick children, due to a shortage of beds, while ablution facilities were not working properly.
Meanwhile, Shangula said the ministry plans to employ 6 186 people over a period of five years.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the country only had 18 intensive care unit beds.
None of them were in the southern part of the country.
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