SMSes For Fri 24 July 09

SMS Of The Day
n IF we as Namibians are not careful enough to nurture our peace and stability like an egg, I am afraid we may find ourselves in terrible situations just like many other countries such as Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, etc. Lord, have mercy upon our nation.

Food For Thought* I WITNESSED the welcoming of the Cuban president HE Raul M Castro on July 19. The atmosphere was well presented with national, Swapo and Cuban national colours making the airport very attractive. However, the problem I noticed there was that Swapo colours dominated our own national colours, no one even bothered to don one except for a few flags which were handed out. And contrary to us, the Cubans were proudly displaying their national colours in unison. Does the Swapo flag substitute for our national flag. I do not hate the Swapo party per se but the way things are moving is just not well.- Michael, Wanaheda* I TOOK a taxi from town to Katutura the other day and the driver asked me this question: ‘Why are the people who steal millions not being shot by Police just like those other thieves who were robbing the bar in Windhoek this year?’ It s a small, but a heavy question indeed.Shalli* IF one can tell the nation about the suspension of the NDF General, which was signed by the Minister of Presidential Affairs, not even the Minister of Finance who (allegedly) let the unauthorised N$120 million was suspended. Please let’s be realistic and call a spade a spade.* THUMBS up to the President for the decision he took against the General. ‘Shape up or ship out’, that’s apparently what he said earlier.- TO* IF (NDF chief Martin) Shalli is suspended, for whatever reason, why is (President Hifikepunye) Pohamba not suspended for abusing taxpayers money to campaign for Swapo?* WHY do bad things happen to good people? I forever salute you General Shalli, God be with you.* DID I hear that all former and current Namibian Ambassadors and High Commissioners are being investigated for any possible irregularities? If so, well and good, but not to pick a few and let others off the hook. Then next, it should be former and current Ministers and Deputies, then former and current Secretaries to Cabinet followed by Permanent and Deputy Permanent Secretaries, then Under Secretaries, Directors and Deputies, and so it goes down. We need consistency in this nation if we want to maintain our peace and stability. Wrongdoing should be so regardless of who does it.General* BEE is just a way of empowering the already empowered or the corrupt that are able to raise funds through corrupt ways. I really don’t see the benefit it has for most of us who don’t have the financial resources and are trying to make an honest living. * PLEASE help! Where can poor people get help to bury their loved ones? Contact Miss Sophy on 085-587-2131BrickbatsAnd Bouquets* VIVA Comrade Pohamba for taking a serious step against corrupt officials. Corruption can only stop by firing culprits, seizing their properties and locking them in jail, but not by transferring them or walks against corruption.- Tired of Corruption, Elim* I’M taking my hat off to Lance Armstrong. What an athlete! – Rebekka* MR [Christof] Maletsky – congratulations. Your comment ‘When A National Event Is Not One’ [opinion piece in The Namibian] is to the point.- Waltraut* I NEVER expected Gazza to stoop so low as to abuse the good faith of his fans and campaign for Swapo. As an ambassador for Team Namibia and education, he should unite the youth, not play dangerous games of party politics he understands very little about.
Road hogs are everywhere* WINDHOEKERS, watch your driving – it is poor! Keep the necessary distance and make sure you are able to see the rear tyres of the vehicle in front of you. Too many accidents. Be considerate and save lives!* MR Tebs on NBC National Radio and Petrus Maria-Maria on Oshwambo radio, it’s just too difficult for you to be neutral on political parties when presenting chat shows? Those are national channels and not political ones. You are not professional presenters.- Junias, Divundu!* AFTER all the changes, reshuffling and years, NBC is still having problems going directly to ads. What’s wrong? Are the producers sleeping on their job?Politics* PEOPLE who are politically immature, stop addressing rallies in this country.* MOST of the youth, 67 per cent, who joined the gathering of Swapo at Onethindi last Saturday were not Swapo members, not Swapo supporters nor sympathisers. They came to see the artist free of charge.Amo, Armas, Amat!n WORKERS at the Holiday Inn can join the struggle kids at Swapo offices. Armas Amukwiyu will give them job.And Justice For All* ALL the fuss by the LAC going to court about the HIV in a landmark case, only to be settled out of court. What a waste.Education* NANSO, where are you heading in fighting for proper, quality and education for production? Instead of actively involving in politicking. Fight for libraries at schools, arts, BIS and physical education subjects to be promotional subjects.* THANKS to Mr Gatjizeko for explaining the constraints in the Adult Education Programme. As adult educators we are working with lack of resources, we are not paid S&T and claims and every year the budget is small. Please Permanent Secretary of Education do something.In And FromThe Regions* ONDANGWA Town Council, on the B1 road from Ondangwa to Onanjokwe Hospital, there is no traffic sign for learners or any speed humps or a sign to show the drivers to lower their speed. Our kids go to school and daycare on that busy road. Crossing that road, a learner was hit by a car and died on the scene. Many passengers are hit by cars in front of the hospital. Please do something.* CAN the Walvis Bay Town Council tell the nation why the vacant position left by King Mandume has not been filled yet. The council is in contradiction of the Local Authorities Act. * OPUWO Town Council, what happened to President Pohamba’s proposal of Opuwo twinning with Yokohama? Or is it true that you don’t care about development?* TO Nored electricity in the north. Is it really fair for someone who applied for an electricity connection at the point where there is no transformer, and charged a lot of money, like N$50 000, then when somebody applies for a connection from that point, they will be charged as little as N$10 000, without even consulting the initiator? Is it Nored’s transformer or the initiator’s? Awaiting your feedback. Thank you!ACC Alert* ANTI-Corruption (Commission), what happened to the DSP MoHSS investigation? Please give the nation a response. Corruption is corruption regardless of who is using who or who benefited! Tell it as it is.* MR Kangueehi should account for every penny of Athletic Namibia. Sport codes should have full-time Secretary Generals and other office staff. Mr Noa please investigate.* ACC please come and investigate at the Namibian Institute of Mining & Technology (NIMT) and see what is happening with the student loan money from the GRN.Service Please* MTC please remove your free calls. We can’t get through. How on earth can a person try to call for 10 minutes. If that is your tricky method, we don’t want it. Our houses might also broken into as we cannot call to report crimes. If you cannot improve, it is better to call off your so-called free calls and call it a punishment call.* MTC please stop making campaigns for free calls. The network is forever jammed and we want to make important calls. Please change this..* I’M a Cell One contract customer. After I sent in my cellphone for repair, they kept it for five months and sent it back without fixing it and said I must to fix it myself, because it’s my fault. I can’t use it any more but I’m still paying for it. Cell One I’m disappointed.- RachelElection Countdown* I WANT to stand as an independent candidate in the upcoming elections. What are the criteria? Is it the same requirements as for political parties? My paper that is ‘still telling it as is’ should do an in-depth article on this issue. Please.* ARE school principals obliged to announce political gatherings/meetings of their parties at school? Inspector of Education in Endola circuit please tell us more* DIRECTORS of Education: Ohangwena, Oshana, Omusati, has the policy of education on politics changed now? If not, know that most teachers and principals come to schools with their cars dressed in politics: Swapo cloths/scarves on their cars’ dashboards or their number plates. Or is it OK if it’s for Swapo? Explain please. Health Matters* I TOOK my children to be immunised at Okuryangava clinic, the nurse who helped us did not vaccinate, only gave the polio drops. Is it how it should be ? Can someone confirm this please. In Tuesday’s The Namibian (July 21) it clearly states and shows a picture of a child being vaccinated.* WE have measures in place at Hosea Kutako Airport to monitor the suspected cases of swine flu among passengers but nothing for crew members. Please change this attitude.* DR Kamwi, are you aware that patients with MDR TB are roaming around freely in Eenhana Hospital.* CAN the Director/Co-ordinator of the National Polio Immunisation Campaign please tell us why volunteers in Keetmanshoop are getting $70 per day but others like at the Coast are only getting meagre food parcels? What criteria did they meet which others did not?- Disappointed VolunteerResponses to SMSes in The Namibian on health mattersThe Ministry of Health and Social Services welcomes the issues raised by the general public regarding health and social services in your regular SMS page and fully agrees that a caring and friendly environment forms an integral part of good health care.Please, find below the Ministry’s responses to respective issues raised in your esteemed newspaper during this month:* The service at Robert Mugabe clinic is so poor and unprofessional and it is filled with inconsiderate staff. As a working mother and a student, I took a sick baby for treatment and was at the clinic exactly at 15h00. Reaching there, the lady where we were supposed to pay the clinic fees insisted that they were full and were seeing no more patients and that we had to take the baby to Katutura Clinic. Imagine how far and long it would take to again jump in a taxi to get to Katutura, especially if you live in town, within 10 minutes walking distance of the Mugabe clinic. But the clinic was empty and two nurses were seated on the patients’ waiting chairs, chatting to each other. There were only four patients waiting. Aren’t they supposed to close at 17h00? Seriously, the Minister of Health must do something to improve on the services at public clinics, especially Mugabe (13 July 2009).The Ministry of Health and Social Services is committed to providing effective health care services to the people of Namibia including the utilisation of our services.We would like to apologise for the inconvenience that it may have caused the author. However, it could have been very helpful if we were forwarded with more specific information such as the date and time the incident occurred in order to do a proper investigation or follow up.According to the policy of the Ministry of Health and Social Services staff members are under no circumstances allowed to send back patients. In this case a sick baby should not be referred to another health facility without attendance by at least a nurse. Kindly contact our Public Relations Office and provide more details so that we can follow-up on this unfortunate case.* DR Kamwi, a child was diagnosed with meningitis at Karasburg Hospital. Act now (15 July 2009)It is correct that a 12 year old girl from Karasburg reported with meningitis at Karasburg Hospital on the 8th July 2009. She was admitted to hospital and tests were done. The patient was put on treatment and responded well. By day 8 she was up and about.This is to inform the author that there are various types of meningitis. Not all forms of meningitis are infectious and therefore, would require isolation, mass vaccination of vulnerable groups and treatment of contacts, which is standard procedure for meningococcal meningitis. The signs and symptoms of all types of meningitis are the same however, such as sudden onset of high fever, neck stiffness, intense headache, confused, photophobia (light shy), nausea and vomiting and sometimes coma.Diagnosis is confirmed through laboratory tests by taking cerebral fluid from the patient. In this particular case the laboratory results confirmed viral meningitis which is not contagious. For that reason the Ministry has not embarked on any further steps.* Why is there only one doctor that attends emergency patients and that same doctor has to attend other patients that are not seriously sick at Katutura State Hospital (15 July 2009)The Casualty Department at the Katutura State Hospital operates 24 hours, 7 days a week throughout. The work is divided into day and night shifts. During the day shift there is one casualty doctor on duty for emergency cases only and another doctor at General Outpatient Department for routine non-emergency cases. The night shift is covered in a similar way. There are also doctors from specialist departments such as surgery, orthopaedics, internal medicine, obstetrics, gynaecology and dental care services, who are on standby to treat referrals from the casualty doctor.* CENTRAL Hospital eastern wards are private? A joke! No bedding, no private nurses, no special food, no warm water! Relatives have to take care of their sick members and go and buy medicine. I am sick! (17 July 2009).The Windhoek Central Hospital (WCH) has 1500 cellular blankets in stock. These blankets provide sufficient warmth even if the air conditioner is fully functional.The hospital bed capacity is 854.WCH has contracted a private company to launder their linen. The laundry is unable to provide the cellular blankets on a daily basis since the blankets take long to dry. However, the hospital is busy addressing this problem with the company. There are now 500 new blankets in the linen bank of WCH and the hospital has purchased 500 extra warm blankets of which delivery is awaited from the supplier.No private nursesAll nursing staff in the ward are available for all patients in the ward. There is no reserved or specific nursing staff only for specific private patients in any state hospital in Namibia.No special foodPatients requiring special diet as prescribed by their medical practitioner are provided with such. Generally, patients are served the same standard menu prepared by our contracted catering company.No warm waterGeysers were installed to ensure the availability of hot water. Due to the winter the consumption of hot water is high and this at times influences the constant supply of hot water. The concern has been raised and constant monitoring of geysers is done by the Department of Works.Relatives have to take care of their sick members and have to go and buy medicineThe provision of nursing care is the duty of all health care providers employed by the Ministry of Health and Social Services. There are exceptions whereby the family would ask to stay in the ward to support the patient in order to enhance the recovery of the client.The pharmacies in all our State Hospitals supply medication that is on the standard Namibian Essential Medicine list. In case a private doctor prefers to prescribe medicine that is not listed on the Namibian Essential Medicine list, the doctor will write a separate private prescription for the patient who would then acquire the prescribed medicine from a private sector (pharmacy). The Ministry’s Essential Medicines Committee meets regularly to decide on the inclusion in the Nemlist of newly available medicines based on the number of relevant criteria- MoHSSResponse to SMS on orphans and death certificates of July 22* SOME orphans never get anything because of Death Certificates that were lost in 2000. Why?The Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare pays child welfare grants to orphans and vulnerable children and one of the qualifying criteria is a grant to a child who has lost either one or both parents through death. In such a case it is imperative that a death certificate is produced along with a full birth certificate of the child in order to prove the biological relationship between the applicant, the child and the deceased. If the deceased was buried without a death certificate ever being issued, for the purposes of applying for the grants, they can contact the local councillors to assist with confirmation of death or the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration to apply for the death certificate or a duplicate death certificate.For more information on how to access Child Welfare Grants contact all MGECW offices countrywide or call 061-2833111.- MGECW