Uis community appeals for facility upgrades

The Uis community, in the Dâures constituency in the Erongo region, has appealed for the upgrading of the settlement to a village or town, so that they can access more and better services.

Topping the list of priority areas are the clinic, more police visibility, social services, and amenities that are overwhelmed by demands from the growing population.

Dâure Daman Traditional Authority senior councillor Herman Naruseb, under whose jurisdiction the settlement falls, says Uis has experienced a mining boom that has attracted many people.

“The growing population has stretched services at the clinic which regularly runs out of drug supplies, leaving patients stranded,” he said on Wednesday.

Naruseb appealed for the clinic to be upgraded to a health centre to offer more services to the community.

“The clinic can have a doctor and an ambulance on site instead of outreach visits where a doctor comes once a month,” he said.

He cited a recent accident involving 10 people where finding an ambulance to ferry them to a bigger health centre was a challenge.

Naruseb said the community brought their concerns to the attention of former deputy minister of gender equality and social services Bernadette Jagger in May last year, and she promised to take them up with the relevant line ministries.

He said challenges were also highlighted at a workshop on gender-based violence, human trafficking and other social ills in February this year.

The challenges at the clinic were also echoed by retired nurse and community activist Mini /Uiseb, who says when the doctor visits, there are too many people that the doctor might not see them all.

He says the three nurses are sometimes overwhelmed by the workload, compromising the quality of service delivered at the clinic built during the colonial era.

“If Uis is upgraded to a village or town, other services will also be upgraded,” he says, adding that the police are stretched thin and do not adequately cover the settlement.

Naruseb said the population increase has brought with it social challenges like teenage pregnancies, as well as alcohol and drug abuse, and called for a social worker.

Concerned community member Jeffrey Matsuib, who has lived at the settlement for 39 years, blames social ills on the lack of recreation facilities in the settlement to take young people away from bars and drugs.

The settlement’s chief executive, Amigo Honneb, says the rising population was straining water supplies, resulting in the old pipe installed 50 years ago failing to cope with the pressure, leading to frequent bursts.

He says there was talk of upgrading Uis, which falls under the Erongo Rural Council, to have its own councillors this year.

Established in 1958 as a workers’ settlement, the settlement grew around the tin mine until it was shut down in 1991 when tin prices collapsed, leading to job losses and a reduction in the quality of life at Uis.

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