Two months after being opened with much fanfare by the Free State Premier, the Borwa Clinic in Tweespruit has yet to hire additional staff, with the new, bigger facility still relying on the same workforce that manned the old, smaller building.
The state-of-the-art facility promised to provide a range of essential primary healthcare services, including immunisation, family planning, HIV counselling and testing, as well as chronic disease management, but no extra staff have yet been employed to boost the resources, reports Health-e News.
Tshepo Namane, a local resident, said the community was under the impression more staff were to be hired, to ensure faster services. “What’s the use of having the same few nurses, with nothing changed except the building?” he complained.
“Borwa needs more nurses and doctors. Elderly locals are jammed together with other patients in just one room, queueing for help instead of having a dedicated health worker for a particular group of patients.”
Another patient, Masello Mohale (72), said the clinic desperately needed a doctor. “Why can’t the Premier bring a doctor for us?”
Mohale said Premier Maqueen Letsoha-Mathae had promised the community that the department would hire more staff.
“She also said there would be more nurses …. We are thankful we have a much bigger clinic, but we need more staff,” she added.
The chairperson of Borwa Clinic Committee, Toto Jacobs, said they were very grateful to the government for having built a new clinic, but he also raised concerns about staffing, pointing out that there was only one cleaner, and that security guards were having to be deployed from Senorita Nhlabathi District Hospital.
He pleaded with provincial health leadership to remedy the situation.
“We cannot have this building and not protect it. We need nurses and security officers.”
At the opening of the facility in November last year, Letsoha-Mathae had assured the community that the Department of Health would beef up staffing components and employ 386 nurses and 66 doctors in the province during the next financial year.
However, the department has not yet hired any more staff, citing budget constraints. Spokesperson Mondli Mvambi said the complaints about the Borwa Clinic had been noted.
“The department would like to employ many more health workers for all of the clinics, but it is limited by budget. We told the residents at the clinic opening that some things would only be done after the tabling of the new budget.”
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Queues, staff shortages worsen at clinics after Pepfar cuts
Queues, shoddy service plague Free State healthcare – Ritshidze report